jPSATY  OF 
ir'ORNIA 
XESO 


J 


■>- 


I  fey 


JlOJiuS    SUBSECIVM. 


"  A  lady,  resident  in  Devonshire,  going  into  one  of  her  parlors,  dis- 
covered a  young  ass,  who  had  found  his  way  into  the  room,  and  carefully 
closed  the  door  upon  himself.  He  had  evidently  not  been  long  in  this  sit- 
uation before  he  had  nibbled  a  part  of  Cicero's  Orations,  and  eaten 
nearly  all  the  index  of  a  folio  edition  of  Seneca  in  Latin,  a  large  part 
of  a  volume  of  La  Bruy'ere's  Maxims  in  French,  and  several  pages  oj 
Cecilia.  He  had  done  no  other  mischief  whatever,  and  not  a  vestige  re- 
mained of  the  leaves  that  he  had  devoured."  —  Pierce  Egan. 


"  The  treatment  of  the  illustrious  dead  by  the  quick,  often  reminds  me 
of  the  yravediyyer  in  Hamlet,  and  the  skull  of  poor  defunct  Torick."  — 
W.  H.  B. 

"  Mulli  ad  sapientiam  pervenire  potuissent,  nisi  se  jam  pervenisse 
putassent." 

"  There's  nothing  so  amusiny  as  human  nature,  but  then  you  must  have 
some  one  to  lauyh  withT1 


SPARE    HOURS. 


BY 


JOHN    BROWN,    M.  D. 


If  thou  be  a  severe,  sour-complexioned  man,  then  I  here  disallow  thee  to 
be  a  competent  judge.  —  Izaak  Walton. 


FIRS  T  SERIES. 


BOSTON: 
TICK NOR     AND     FIELDS 
1867. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  In  the  year  1861,  by 

TlCKNOR  AND   FIELDS, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  District  of  Massachusetts 


NOTE     TO     THE     AMERICAN     EDITION. 

THE  author  of  "  Rab  and  his  Friends"  scarcely  needs  an 
introduction  to  American  readers.  By  this  time  many 
have  learned  to  agree  with  a  writer  in  the  "  North  British  Re- 
view "  that  "Rab"  is,  all  things  considered,  the  most  perfect 
prose  narrative  since  Lamb's  "  Rosamond  Gray." 

A  new  world  of  doctors,  clergymen,  shepherds,  and  carriers 
is  revealed  in  the  writings  of  this  cheerful  Edinburgh  scholar, 
who  always  brings  genuine  human  feeling,  strong  sense,  and 
fine  genius  to  the  composition  of  his  papers.  Dogs  he  loves 
with  an  enthusiasm  to  be  found  nowhere  else  in  canine  litera- 
ture. He  knows  intimately  all  a  cur  means  when  he  winks  his 
eye  or  wags  his  tail,  so  that  the  whole  barking  race,  —  terrier, 
mastiff,  spaniel,  and  the  rest, —  finds  in  him  an  affectionate  and 
interested  friend.  His  genial  motto  seems  to  run  thus  — "  I 
cannot  understand  that  morality  which  excludes  animals  from 
human  sympathy,  or  releases  man  from  the  debt  and  obligation 
he  owes  to  them." 

With  the  author's  consent  we  have  rejected  from  his  two 
series  cf  "  Horse  Subsecivae"  the  articles  on  strictly  professional 
subjects,  and  have  collected  into  this  volume  the  rest  of  his  ad- 
mirable papers  in  that  work.  The  title,  "  Spare  Hours,"  is 
also  adopted  with  the  author's  sanction. 

Dr.  Brown  is  an  eminent  practising  physician  in  Edinburgh, 
with  small  leisure  for  literary  composition,  but  no  one  has 
stronger  claims  to  be  ranked  among  the  purest  and  best  writ- 
ers of  our  day. 

Boston,  December  1861. 


CONTENTS. 

Ra.b  and  His  Friends 21 

"With  Brains,  Sir" 41 

The  Mystery  of  Black  and  Tan     ...  65 

Her  Last  Half-Crown 77 

Our  Dogs 83 

Queen  Mary's  Child-Garden         ....  107 

Presence  of  Mind  and  Happy  Guessing          .  115 

My  Father's  Memoir 125 

Mystifications 215 

"  Oh,  I'm  Wat,  Wat  ! " 229 

Arthur  H.  Hallam 241 

Education  Through  the  Senses  .        .        .297 

Vaughan's  Poems 311 

Dr.  Chalmers 353 

Dr.  George  Wilson 385 

St.  Paul's  Thorn  in  the  Flesh    ...  397 

The  Black  Dwarf's  Bones  419 

Notes  on  Art 439 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

,  N  that  delightful  and  provoking  book,  "  The 
Doctok,  &c,"  Southey  says  :   "  'Prefaces,' 
said  Charles  Blount,  Gent.,  'Prefaces,'  ac- 
^V*    cording  to  this   flippant,  ill-opinioned,  and 
unhappy  man,  '  ever  were,  and  still  are,  but  of  two  sorts, 
let  the  mode  and  fashions  vary  as  they  please,  —  let  the 
long  peruke  succeed  the  godly  cropt  hair  ;  the  cravat, 
the  ruff ;   presbytery,    popery ;    and   popery,   presbytery 
again,  —  yet  still  the  author  keeps  to  his  old  and  wonted 
method  of  prefacing  ;  when  at  the  beginning  of  his  book 
he  enters,  either  with  a  halter  round  his  neck,  submit- 
ting himself  to  his  readers'  mercy  whether  he  shall  be 
hanged  or  no,  or  else,  in  a  huffing  manner,  he  appears 
with  the  halter  in  his  hand,  and  threatens  to  hang  his 
reader,  if  he  gives  him  not  his  good  word.     This,  with 
the  excitement  of  friends  to  his  undertaking,  and  some 
few  apologies  for  the  want  of  time,  books,  and  the  like, 
are  the  constant  and  usual  shams  of  all  scribblers,  an- 
cient  and   modern.'       This   was    not   true    then,"    says 
Southey,  "  nor   is  it  now."     I  differ  from   Southey,  in 
thinking  there  is  some  truth  in  both  ways  of  wearing 
the  halter.     For  though   it  be  neither  manly  nor   hon- 
est to  affect  a  voluntary  humility  (which  is  after  all,  a 
sneaking  vanity,  and  would  soon  show  itself  if  taken  at 


10  PREFACE. 

its  word),  any  more  than  it  is  well-bred,  or  seemly  to 
put  on  (for  it  generally  is  put  on)  the  "  huffing  man- 
ner," both  such  being  truly  "  shams,"  —  there  is  gen- 
eral truth  in  Mr.  Blount's  flippancies. 

Every  man  should  know  and  lament  (to  himself)  his 
own  shortcomings  —  should  mourn  over  and  mend,  as 
he  best  can,  the  "confusions  of  his  wasted  youth;"  he 
should  feel  how  ill  he  has  put  out  to  usury  the  talent 
given  him  by  the  Great  Taskmaster  —  how  far  he  is 
from  being  "  a  good  and  faithful  servant ;  "  and  he  should 
make  this  rather  understood  than  expressed  by  his  man- 
ner as  a  writer ;  while  at  the  same  time,  every  man 
should  deny  himself  the  luxury  of  taking  his  hat  off 
to  the  public,  unless  he  has  something  to  say,  and  has 
done  his  best  to  say  it  aright ;  and  every  man  should 
pay  not  less  attention  to  the  dress  in  which  his  thoughts 
present  themselves,  than  he  would  to  that  of  his  per- 
son on  going  into  company. 

Bishop  Butler,  in  his  "  Preface  to  his  Sermons,"  in 
which  there  is  perhaps  more  solid  living  sense  than  in 
the  same  number  of  words  anywhere  else  after  making 
the  distinction  between  "  obscurity "  and  "  perplexity 
and  confusion  of  thought,"  —  the  first  being  in  the  sub- 
ject, the  others  in  its  expression,  says,  —  "  confusion 
and  perplexity  are,  in  writing,  indeed  without  excuse, 
because  any  one  may,  if  he  pleases,  know  whether  he 
understands  or  sees  through  what  he  is  about,  and  it 
is  unpardonable  in  a  man  to  lay  his  thoughts  before 
others,  when  he  is  conscious  that  he  himself  does  not 
know  whereabouts  he  is,  or  how  the  matter  before  him 
stands.  It  is  coming  abroad  in  disorder,  which  he  ought 
to  be  dissatisfied  to  find  himself  in  at  home." 

There  should  therefore  be  in  his  Preface,  as  in   the 


PREFACE.  11 

writer  himself,  two  elements.  A  writer  should  have 
some  assurance  that  he  has  something  to  say,  and  this 
assurance  should,  in  the  true  sense,  not  the   Milesian, 

be  modest. 

****** 

I  have  to  apologize  for  bringing  in  "  Rab  and  his 
Friends."  I  did  so,  remembering  well  the  good  I  got 
then,  as  a  man  and  as  a  doctor.  It  let  me  see  down 
into  the  depths  of  our  common  nature,  and  feel  the 
strong  and  gentle  touch  that  we  all  need,  and  never  for- 
get, which  makes  the  world  kin ;  and  it  gave  me  an  op- 
portunity of  introducing,  in  a  way  which  he  cannot  dis- 
like, for  he  knows  it  is  simply  true,  my  old  master  and 
friend,  Professor  Syme,  whose  indenture  I  am  thankful 
I  possess,  and  whose  first  wheels  I  delight  in  thinking 
my  apprentice-fee  purchased,  thirty  years  ago.  I  re- 
member as  if  it  were  yesterday,  his  giving  me  the  first 
drive  across  the  west  shoulder  of  Corstorphine  Hill.  On 
starting,  he  said,  "  John,  we'll  do  one  thing  at  a  time, 
and  there  will  be  no  talk."  I  sat  silent  and  rejoicing, 
and  can  remember  the  very  complexion  and  clouds  of 
that  day  and  that  matchless  view :  Damyat  and  Benledi 
resting  couchant  at  the  gate  of  the  Highlands,  with  the 
huge  Grampians,  immane  pecus,  crowding  down  into  the 
plain. 

This  short  and  simple  story  shows,  that  here,  as  every- 
where else,  personally,  professionally,  and  publicly,  re- 
ality is  his  aim  and  his  attainment.  He  is  one  of  the 
men  —  they  are  all  too  few  —  who  desire  to  be  on  the 
6ide  of  truth  more  than  to  have  truth  on  their  side; 
and  whose  personal  and  private  worth  are  always  bet- 
ter understood  than  expi'essed.  It  has  been  happily 
said  of  him,  that  he  never  wastes  a  word,  or  a  drop  of 


12  PREFACE. 

ink,  or  a  drop  of  blood  ;  and  his  is  the  strongest,  exact- 
est,  truest,  immediatest,  safest  intellect,  dedicated  by  ita 
possessor  to  the  surgical  cure  of  mankind,  I  have  ever 
yet  met  with.  He  will,  I  firmly  believe,  leave  an  in- 
heritance of  good  done,  and  mischief  destroyed,  of  truth 
in  theory  and  in  practice  established,  and  of  error  in  the 
same  exposed  and  ended,  such  as  no  one  since  John 
Hunter  has  been  gifted  to  bequeath  to  his  fellow-men. 
As  an  instrument  for  discovering  truth,  I  have  never 
seen  his  perspicacity  equalled ;  his  mental  eye  is  achro- 
matic, and  admits  into  the  judging  mind  a  pure  white 
light,  and  records  an  undisturbed,  uncolored  image,  un- 
diminished and  unenlarged  in  its  passage  ;  and  he  has 
the  moral  power,  courage,  and  conscience,  to  use  and 
devote  such  an  inestimable  instrument  aright.  I  need 
hardly  add,  that  the  story  of  "  Rab  and  his  Friends  "  is 
in  all  essentials  strictly  matter  of  fact. 

There  is  an  odd  sort  of  point,  if  it  can  be  called  a 
point,  on  which  I  would  fain  say  something  —  and  that 
is  an  occasional  outbreak  of  sudden,  and  it  may  be  felt, 
untimely  humorousness.  I  plead  guilty  to  this,  sensi- 
ble of  the  tendency  in  me  of  the  merely  ludicrous  to 
intrude,  and  to  insist  on  being  attended  to,  and  ex- 
pressed :  it  is  perhaps  too  much  the  way  with  all  of 
us  now-a-days,  to  be  forever  joking.  Mr.  Punch,  to 
whom  we  take  off  our  hats,  grateful  for  his  innocent 
and  honest  fun,  especially  in  his  Leech,  leads  the  way ; 
and  our  two  great  novelists,  Thackeray  and  Dickens, 
the  first  especially,  are,  in  the  deepest  and  highest  sense, 
essentially  humorists,  —  the  best,  nay,  indeed  the  almost 
only  good  thing  in  the  latter,  being  his  broad  and  wild 
fun ;  Swiveller,  and  the  Dodger,  and  Sam  Weller,  and 
Miggs,  are  more  impressive  far   to    my  taste    than  the 


PREFACE.  13 

melo-dramatic,  utterly  unreal  Dombey,  or  his  strumous 
and  hysterical  son,  or  than  all  the  later  dreary  trash  of 
"  Bleak  House,"  &c. 

My  excuse  is,  that  these  papers  are  really  what  they 
profess  to  be,  done  at  bye-hours.  Dulce  est  desipere, 
when  in  its  fit  place  and  time.  Moreover,  let  me  tell 
my  young  doctor  friends,  that  a  cheerful  face,  and  step, 
and  neckcloth,  and  button-hole,  and  an  occasional  hearty 
and  kindly  joke,  a  power  of  executing  and  setting  ago- 
ing a  good  laugh,  are  stock  in  our  trade  not  to  be  de- 
spised. The  merry  heart  does  good  like  a  medicine. 
Your  pompous  man,  and  your  selfish  man,  don't  laugh 
much,  or  care  for  laughter ;  it  discomposes  the  fixed 
grandeur  of  the  one,  and  has  little  room  in  the  heart 
of  the  other,  who  is  literally  self-contained.  My  Edin- 
burgh readers  will  recall  many  excellent  jokes  of  their 
doctors  — "  Lang  Sandie  "Wood,"  Dr.  Henry  Davidson 
our  Guy  Patin  and  better,  &c. 

I  may  give  an  instance,  when  a  joke  was  more  and 
better  than  itself.  A  comely  young  wife,  the  "  cyn- 
osure "  of  her  circle,  was  in  bed,  apparently  dying  from 
swelling  and  inflammation  of  the  throat,  an  inaccessible 
abscess  stopping  the  way ;  she  could  swallow  nothing ; 
everything  had  been  tried.  Her  friends  were  standing 
round  her  bed  in  misery  and  helplessness.  "  Try  her 
wV  a  compliment"  said  her  husband,  in  a  not  uncomic 
despair.  She  had  genuine  humor,  as  well  as  he ;  and 
as  physiologists  know,  there  is  a  sort  of  mental  tickling 
which  is  beyond  and  above  control,  being  under  the 
reflex  system,  and  instinctive  as  well  as  sighing.  She 
laughed  with  her  whole  body  and  soul,  and  burst  the 
abscess,  and  was  well. 

Humor,  if  genuine   (and  if  not,  it  is  not  humor),  is 


14  PREFACE. 

the  very  flavor  of  the  spirit,  its  rich  and  fragrant  oz- 
mazome  —  having  in  its  aroma  something  of  everything 
in  the  man,  his  expressed  juice ;  wit  is  but  the  laugh- 
ing flower  of  the  intellect  or  the  turn  of  speech,  and  is 
often  what  we  call  a  "  gum-flower,"  and  looks  well  when 
dry.  Humor  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  involuntary  in  its 
origin  in  one  man,  and  in  its  effect  upon  another ;  it 
is  systemic,  and  not  local. 

Sydney  Smith,  in  his  delightful  and  valuable  Sketches 
of  Lectures  on  Moral  Philosophy,  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred, makes  a  touching  and  impressive  confession  of 
the  evil  to  the  rest  of  a  man's  nature  from  the  pre- 
dominant power  and  cultivation  of  the  ludicrous.  I  be- 
lieve Charles  Lamb  could  have  told  a  like,  and  as  true, 
but  sadder  story.  He  started  on  life  with  all  the  en- 
dowments of  a  great,  ample,  and  serious  nature,  and 
he  ended  in  being  little  else  than  the  incomparable 
joker  and  humorist,  and  was  in  the  true  sense,  "  of 
large  discourse.""1 

1  Many  good  and  fine  things  have  been  said  of  this  wonderful  and 
unique  genius,  but  I  know  none  better  or  finer  than  these  lines  by 
my  friend  John  Hunter  of  Craigcrook.  They  are  too  little  known, 
and  no  one  will  be  anything  but  pleased  to  read  them,  except  their 
author.     The  third  line  might  have  been  Elia's  own: — 

"  .     .     .     .  Humor,  wild  wit, 
Quips,  cranks,  puns,  sneers,  — with  clear  sweet  thought  profound;  — 
And  stinging  jests,  with  honey  for  the  wound;  — 
The  subtlest  lines  of  all  fine  powers,  split 
To  their  last  films,  then  marvellously  spun 
In  magic  web,  whose  million  hues  are  one  !  " 

I  knew  one  man  who  was  almost  altogether  and  absolutely  comic, 
and  yet  a  man  of  sense,  fidelity,  courage,  and  worth,  but  over  hia 
entire  nature  the  comic  ruled  supreme  —  the  late  Sir  Adam  Fergu- 
son, whose  very  face  was  a  breach  of  solemnity;  I  dare  say,  even  in 
sleep  he  looked  a  wag.  This  was  the  way  in  which  everything  ap- 
peared to  him  first,  and  often  last  too,  with  a  serious  enough  middle 


PREFACE.  15 

It  only  remains  now  for  me  to  thank  my  cousin  and 
life-long  friend,  John  Taylor  Brown,  the  author  of  the 

I  saw  him  not  long  before  his  death,  when  he  was  of  great  age  and 
knew  he  was  dying;  there  was  no  levity  in  his  manner,  or  thought- 
lessness about  his  state;  he  was  kind,  and  shrewd  as  ever;  but  how 
he  flashed  out  with  utter  merriment  when  he  got  hold  of  a  joke,  or 
rather  when  it  got  hold  of  him,  and  shook  him,  not  an  inch  of  his 
body  was  free  of  its  power — it  possessed  him,  not  he  it.  The  first 
attack  was  on  showing  me  a  calotype  of  himself  by  the  late  Adamson 
(of  Hill  and  Adamson;  the  Vandyke  and  Raeburn  of  photography), 
in  the  corner  of  which  he  had  written,  with  a  hand  trembling  with 
age  and  fun,  "  Adam's-sun  fecit  " —  it  came  back  upon  him  and  torn 
him  without  mercy. 

Then,  his  blood  being  up,  he  told  me  a  story  of  his  uncle,  the  great 
Dr.  Black  the  chemist;  no  one  will  grudge  the  reading  of  it  in  my 
imperfect  record,  though  it  is  to  the  reality  what  reading  music  is  to 
hearing  it. 

Dr.  Black,  when  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  Edinburgh  University, 
had  a  gruff  old  man  as  his  porter,  a  James  Alston.  James  was  one  of 
the  old  school  of  chemistry,  and  held  by  phlogiston,  but  for  no  better 
reason  than  the  endless  trouble  the  new-fangled  discoveries  brought 
upon  him  in  the  way  of  apparatus. 

The  Professor  was  lecturing  on  Hydrogen  Gas,  and  had  made  ar- 
rangements for  showing  its  lightness,  what  our  preceptor,  Dr.  Charles 
Hope,  called,  in  his  lofty  way,  its  ''principle  of  absolute  levity."  He 
was  greatly  excited,  the  good  old  man  of  genius.  James  was  stand- 
ing behind  his  chair,  ready  and  sulky.  His  master  told  his  young 
friends  that  the  bladder  he  had  filled  with  the  gas  must,  on  principle, 
ascend ;  but  that  they  would  see  practically  if  it  did,  and  he  cut  the 
string.  Up  it  rushed,  amid  the  shouts  and  upturned  faces  of  the 
boys,  and  the  quiet  joy  of  their  master;  James  regarding  it  with  a 
glum  curiosity. 

Young  Adam  Ferguson  was  there,  and  left  at  the  end  of  the  hour 
with  the  rest,  but  finding  he  had  forgotten  his  stick,  went  back;  in 
the  empty  room,  he  found  James  perched  upon  a  lofty  and  shaky 
ladder,  trying,  amid  much  perspiration,  and  blasphemy,  and  want  of 
breath,  to  hit  down  hi3  enemy,  who  rose  at  each  stroke  —  the  old  bat- 
tling with  the  new.  Sir  Adam's  reproduction  of  this  scene,  his  voice 
and  screams  of  rapture,  I  shall  never  forget. 

Let  me  give  another  pleasant  story  of  Dr.  Black  and  Sir  Adam, 
which  our  Principal  (Dr.  Lee)  delights  to  tell;  it  is  merely  its  bones. 
The  doctor  sent  him  to  the  bank  for  £5 —  four  in  notes,  and  one   hr 


1 6  PREFACE. 

tract  on  "  St.  Paul's  Thorn  in  the  Flesh."  I  am  sure 
my  readers  will  thank  me  not  less  heartily  than  I  now 
do  him.  The  theory  that  the  thorn  of  the  great  apostle 
was  an  affection  of  the  eyes  is  not  new ;  it  will  be 
found  in  "  Hannah  More's  Life,"  and  in  "  Conybeare  and 
Howson  ;"  but  his  argument  and  his  whole  treatment,  I 
have  reason  to  believe,  from  my  father  and  other  conv 
petent  judges,  is  thoroughly  original ;  it  is  an  exquisite 
monograph,  and  to  me  most  instructive  and  striking. 
Every  one  will  ask  why  such  a  man  has  not  written 
more  —  a  question  my  fastidious  friend  will  find  is  easier 
asked  than  answered. 

This  Preface  was  written,  and  I  had  a  proof  ready 
for  his  pencil,  when  I  was  summoned  to  the  death  of 
him  to  whom  I  owe  my  life.  He  had  been  dying  for 
months,  but  he  and  I  hoped  to  have  got  and  to  have 
given  into  his  hands  a  copy  of  these  Uorce,  the  correc- 
tion of  which  had  often  whiled  away  his  long  hours  of 
languor  and  pain.  God  thought  otherwise.  I  shall 
miss  his  great  knowledge,  his  loving  and  keen  eye  — 
his  ne  quid  nimis  —  his  sympathy  —  himself.  Let  me 
be  thankful  that  it  was  given  to  me  assidere  valetudini, 
fovere  deficientem,  satiari  vultu,  complexu, 

Si  quis  piorum  manibus  locus ;  si,  ut  sapientibus 
placet,  non  cum  corpore  extinguuntur  magnce  animce ; 
placide  quiescas  ! 

silver;  then  told  him  that  he  must  he  paid  for  hi9  trouhle  with  a  shil- 
ling, and  next  proceeded  to  give  him  good  advice  about  the  manage- 
ment of  money,  particularly  recommending  a  careful  record  of  every 
penny  spent,  holding  the  shilling  up  before  him  all  the  time.  Dur- 
ing this  address,  Sir  Ad:im  was  turning  over  in  his  mind  all  the  trash 
he  would  be  able  to  purchase  with  the  shilling,  and  his  feeling  may 
be  imagined  when  the  doctor  finally  returned  it  to  his  own  pocket 


PREFACE.  17 

Or,  in  more  sacred  and  hopeful  words,  which,  put 
there  at  my  father's  request,  may  be  found  at  the  close 
of  the  paper  on  young  Hallam  :  "  0  man  greatly  be- 
loved, go  thou  thy  way  till  the  end  ;  for  thou  shalt  rest, 
and  stand  in  thy  lot  at  the  end  of  the  days." 

It  is  not  for  a  son  to  speak  what  he  thinks  of  his 
father  so  soon  after  his  death.  I  leave  him  now  with 
a  portrait  of  his  spiritual  lineaments,  by  Dr.  Cairns, — 
which  is  to  them  what  a  painting  by  Velasquez  and 
Da  Vinci  combined  would  have  been  to  his  bodily 
presence. 

"  As  he  was  of  the  Pauline  type  of  mind,  his  Christianity  ran  into 
the  same  mould.  A  strong,  intense,  and  vehement  nature,  with 
masculine  intellect  and  unyielding  will,  he  accepted  the  Bible  in 
its  literal  simplicity  as  an  absolute  revelation,  and  then  showed  the 
strength  of  his  character  in  subjugating  his  whole  being  to  this 
decisive  influence,  and  in  projecting  the  same  convictions  into  other 
minds.  He  was  a  believer  in  the  sense  of  the  old  Puritans,  and, 
amid  the  doubt  and  skepticism  of  the  nineteenth  century,  held  as 
firmly  as  any  of  them  by  the  doctrines  of  atonement  and  grace. 
He  had  most  of  the  idiosyncrasy  of  Baxter,  though  not  without  the 
contemplation  of  Howe.  The  doctrines  of  Calvinism,  mitigated  but 
not  renounced,  and  received  simply  as  dictates  of  Heaven,  without 
any  effort  or  hope  to  bridge  over  their  inscrutable  depths  by  philo- 
sophical theories,  he  translated  into  a  fervent,  humble,  and  resolutely 
active  life. 

"There  was  a  fountain  of  tenderness  in  his  nature  as  well  as  a 
sweep  of  impetuous  indignation;  and  the  one  drawn  out,  and  the 
other  controlled  by  his  Christian  faith,  made  him  at  once  a  philan- 
thropist and  a  reformer,  and  both  in  the  highest  departments  of 
human  interest.  The  union  of  these  ardent  elements,  and  of  a 
highly  devotional  temperament,  not  untouched  with  melancholy,  with 
the  patience  of  the  scholar,  and  the  sobriety  of  the  critic,  formed  the 
singularity  and  almost  the  anomaly  of  his  personal  character.  These 
contrasts  were  tempered  by  the  discipline  of  experience;  and  his  life, 
both  as  a  man  and  a  Christian,  seemed  to  become  more  rich,  genial, 
and  harmonious  as  it  approached  its  close."  —  Scotsman,  October  20th. 

J.  B. 

23,  Rutland  Street,  October  30,  1858. 
2 


18  PREFACE. 


POST  PREFACE. 

I  have  to  thank  the  public  and  my  own  special  craft 
cordially  and  much  for  their  reception  of  these  Idle 
Hours  —  Brown  Studies,  as  a  friendly  wag  calls  them — • 
and  above  all,  for  their  taking  to  their  hearts  that  great 
old  dog  and  his  dead  friends,  —  for  all  which  the  one 
friend  who  survives  thanks  them.  There  is  no  harm 
and.  some  good  in  letting  our  sympathy  and  affection 
go  forth  without  stint  on  such  objects,  dead  and  homely 
though  they  be. 

When  I  think  of  that  noble  head,  with  its  look  and 
eye  of  boundless  affection  and  pluck,  simplicity  and 
single-heartedness,  I  feel  what  it  would  be  for  us,  who 
call  ourselves  the  higher  animals,  to  be  in  our  ways  as 
simple,  affectionate,  and  true,  as  that  old  mastiff;  and 
in  the  highest  of~all  senses,  I  often  think  of  what  Robert 
Burns  says  somewhere,  "  Man  is  the  god  of  the  dog." 
It  would  be  well  for  man  if  his  worship  were  as  im- 
mediate and  instinctive  —  as  absolute  as  the  dog's.  Did 
we  serve  our  God  with  half  the  zeal  Rab  served  his,  we 
might  trust  to  sleep  as  peacefully  in  our  graves  as  he 
does  in  his.  When  James  turned  his  angry  eye  and 
raised  his  quick  voice  and  foot,  his  worshipper  slunk 
away,  humbled  and  afraid,  angry  with  himself  for  mak- 
ing him  angry ;  anxious  by  any  means  to  crouch  back 
into  his  favor,  and  a  kind  look  or  word.  Is  that  the 
way  we  take  His  displeasure,  even  when  we  can't  think, 
as  Rab  couldn't,  we  were  immediately  to  blame  ?  It  is} 
as  the  old  worthy  says,  something  to  trust  our  God  in 
the  dark,  as  the  dog  does  his. 


PREFACE  19 

A  dear  and  wise  and  exquisite  child,  drew  a  plan  for  a 
headstone  on  the  grave  of  a  favorite  terrier,  and  she  had 
in  it  the  words  "  who  died  "  on  such  a  day ;  the  older 
and  more  worldly-minded  painter  put  in  "  which  ; " 
and  my  friend  and  "  Bossy's "  said  to  me,  with  some 
displeasure,  as  we  were  examining  the  monuments, 
"  Wasn't  he  a  Who  as  much  as  they  ? "  and  wasn't 
she  righter  than  they  ?  and 

"Quis  desiderio  sit  aut  pudor  aut  modus 
Tarn  cari  capitis  "  — 

as  that  of  "  Rab." 

With  regard  to  the  quotations  —  and  the  much  Latin 
and  some  Greek,  the  world  of  men,  and  especially  of 
women,  is  dead  against  me.  I  am  sorry  for  it.  As  he 
said,  who  was  reminded  in  an  argument  that  the  facts 
were  against  him,  "  So  much  the  worse  for  them,"  and 
I  may  add  for  me.  Latin  and  Greek  are  not  dead  — 
in  one  sense,  they  are  happily  immortal ;  but  the  pres- 
ent age  is  doing  its  worst  to  kill  them,  and  much  of 
their  own  best  good  and  pleasure. 

23,  Rutland  Street, 
October  13,  1859. 


BAB    AND    HIS   FRIEND8 


To  MY    TWO    FRIENDS 
at  Busby,  Renfrewshire, 

In  Remembrance  of  a  Journey  from  Carstairs  Junction 
to  Toledo  and  back, 

The  Story  of  "  Rab  and  his  Friends  "  is  inscribed. 


EAB   AND   HIS   FRIENDS. 


OUR-AND-THIRTY  years  ago,  Bob  Ains- 
lie  and  I  were  coming  up  Infirmary  Street 
from  the  Edinburgh  High  School,  our  heads 
together,  and  our  arms  intertwisted,  as  only 
lovers  and  boys  know  how,  or  why. 

When  we  got  to  the  top  of  the  street,  and  turned 
north,  we  espied  a  crowd  at  the  Tron  Church.  "  A  dog- 
fight ! "  shouted  Bob,  and  was  off;  and  so  was  I,  both  of 
us  all  but  praying  that  it  might  not  be  over  before  we 
got  up  !  And  is  not  this  boy-nature  ?  and  human  nature 
too  ?  and  don't  we  all  wish  a  house  on  fire  not  to  be  out 
before  we  see  it  ?  Dogs  like  fighting ;  old  Isaac  says 
they  "  delight "  in  it,  and  for  the  best  of  all  reasons ;  and 
boys  are  not  cruel  because  they  like  to  see  the  fight. 
They  see  three  of  the  great  cardinal  virtues  of  dog  or 
man  —  courage,  endurance,  and  skill  —  in  intense  action. 
This  is  very  different  from  a  love  of  making  dogs  fight, 
and  enjoying,  and  aggravating,  and  making  gain  by  their 
pluck.  A  boy  —  be  he  ever  so  fond  himself  of  fighting, 
if  he  be  a  good  boy,  hates  and  despises  all  this,  but  he 
would  have  run  off  with  Bob  and  me  fast  enough :  it  is  a 
natural,  and  a  not  wicked  interest,  that  all  boys  and  men 
have  in  witnessing  intense  energy  in  action. 

Does  any  curious  and  finely-ignorant  woman  wish  to 
know  how  Bob's  eye  at  a  glance  announced  a  dog-fight  to 


24  EAB  AND  HIS  FRIENDS. 

his  brain  ?  He  did  not,  he  could  not  see  the  dogs  fight- 
ing ;  it  was  a  flash  of  an  inference,  a  rapid  induction 
The  crowd  round  a  couple  of  dogs  fighting,  is  a  crowd 
masculine  mainly,  with  an  occasional  active,  compassion- 
ate woman,  fluttering  wildly  round  the  outside,  and  using 
her  tongue  and  her  hands  freely  upon  the  men,  as  so 
many  "  brutes  ;  "  it  is  a  crowd  annular,  compact,  and  mo- 
bile ;  a  crowd  centripetal,  having  its  eyes  and  its  heads 
all  bent  downwards  and  inwards,  to  one  common  focus. 

Well,  Bob  and  I  are  up,  and  find  it  is  not  over :  a 
small  thoroughbred,  white  bull-terrier,  is  busy  throttling 
a  large  shepherd's  dog,  unaccustomed  to  war,  but  not  to 
be  trifled  with.  They  are  hard  at  it ;  the  scientific  little 
fellow  doing  his  work  in  great  style,  his  pastoral  enemy 
fighting  wildly,  but  with  the  sharpest  of  teeth  and  a  great 
courage.  Science  and  breeding,  however,  soon  had  their 
own  ;  the  Game  Chicken,  as  the  premature  Bob  called 
him,  working  his  way  up,  took  his  final  grip  of  poor 
Yarrow's  throat,  —  and  he  lay  gasping  and  done  for. 
His  master,  a  brown,  handsome,  big  young  shepherd 
from  Tweedsmuir,  would  have  liked  to  have  knocked 
down  any  man,  would  "  drink  up  Esil,  or  eat  a  crocodile," 
for  that  part,  if  he  had  a  chance :  it  was  no  use  kicking 
the  little  dog ;  that  would  only  make  him  hold  the  closer. 
Many  were  the  means  shouted  out  in  mouthfuls,  of  the 
best  possible  ways  of  ending  it.  "  Water !  "  but  there 
was  none  near,  and  many  cried  for  it  who  might  have 
got  it  from  the  well  at  Blackfriars  Wynd.  "  Bite  the 
tail !  "  and  a  large,  vague,  benevolent,  middle-aged  man, 
more  desirous  than  wise,  with  some  struggle  got  the 
bushy  end  of  Yarrow's  tail  into  his  ample  mouth,  and  bit 
it  with  all  his  might.  This  was  more  than  enough  for 
the  much-enduring,  much-perspiring  shepherd,  who,  with 


RAB  AND  HIS  FKIENDS.  25 

a  gleam  of  joy  over  his  broad  visage,  delivered  a  terrific 
facer  upon  our  large,  vague,  benevolent,  middle-aged 
friend,  —  who  went  down  like  a  shot. 

Still  the  Chicken  holds;  death  not  far  off.  "Snuff! 
a  pinch  of  snuff!  "  observed  a  calm,  highly-dressed 
young  buck,  with  an  eye-glass  in  his  eye.  "  Snuff,  in- 
deed ! "  growled  the  angry  crowd,  affronted  and  glaring. 
"Snuff!  a  pinch  of  snuff!"  again  observes  the  buck 
but  with  more  urgency  ;  whereon  were  produced  severa. 
open  boxes,  and  from  a  mull  which  may  have  been  at 
Culloden,  he  took  a  pinch,  knelt  down,  and  presented  it 
to  the  nose  of  the  Chicken.  The  laws  of  physiology 
and  of  snuff  take  their  course ;  the  Chicken  sneezes, 
and  Yarrow  is  free  ! 

The  young  pastoral  giant  stalks  off  with  Yarrow  in 
his  arms,  —  comforting  him. 

But  the  Bull  Terrier's  blood  is  up,  and  his  soul  un- 
satisfied ;  he  grips  the  first  dog  he  meets,  and  discover- 
ing she  is  not  a  dog,  in  Homeric  phrase,  he  makes  a 
brief  sort  of  amende,  and  is  ■  off.  The  boys,  with  Bob 
and  me  at  their  head,  are  after  him :  down  Niddry 
Street  he  goes,  bent  on  mischief;  up  the  Cowgate  like 
an  arrow  —  Bob  and  I,  and  our  small  men,  panting 
behind. 

There,  under  the  single  arch  of  the  South  Bridge,  is 
a  huge  mastiff,  sauntering  down  the  middle  of  the  cause- 
way, as  if  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets :  he  is  old,  gray, 
brindled,  as  big  as  a  little  Highland  bull,  and  has  the 
Shaksperian  dewlaps  shaking  as  he  goes. 

The  Chicken  makes  straight  at  him,  and  fastens  on 
his  throat.  To  our  astonishment,  the  great  creature 
does  nothing  but  stand  still,  hold  himself  up,  and  roar 
—  yes,  roar  ;  a  long,  serious,  remonstrative  roar.     How 


26  EAB  AND  HIS  FRIENDS. 

is  this?  Bob  and  I  are  up  to  them.  He  is  muzzled! 
The  bailies  had  proclaimed  a  general  muzzling,  and  his 
master,  studying  strength  and  economy  mainly,  had 
encompassed  his  huge  jaws  in  a  home-made  apparatus, 
constructed  out  of  the  leather  of  some  ancient  breechin. 
His  mouth  was  open  as  far  as  it  could ;  his  lips  curled 
up  in  rage  —  a  sort  of  terrible  grin  ;  his  teeth  gleaming, 
ready,  from  out  the  darkness  ;  the  strap  across  his  mouth 
tense  as  a  bowstring ;  his  whole  frame  stiff  with  indig- 
nation and  surprise  ;  his  roar  asking  us  all  round,  "  Did 
you  ever  see  the  like  of  this  ?  "  He  looked  a  statue  of 
anger  and  astonishment,  done  in  Aberdeen  granite. 

We  soon  had  a  crowd :  the  Chicken  held  on.  "  A 
knife  ! "  cried  Bob  ;  and  a  cobbler  gave  him  his  knife : 
you  know  the  kind  of  knife,  worn  away  obliquely  to  a 
point,  and  always  keen.  I  put  its  edge  to  the  tense 
leather  ;  it  ran  before  it ;  and  then  !  —  one  sudden  jerk 
of  that  enormous  head,  a  sort  of  dirty  mist  about  his 
mouth,  no  noise^ — and  the  bright  and  fierce  little  fel- 
low is  dropped,  limp,  and  dead.  A  solemn  pause  :  this 
was  more  than  any  of  us  had  bargained  for.  I  turned 
the  little  fellow  over,  and  saw  he  was  quite  dead ;  the 
mastiff  had  taken  him  by  the  small  of  the  back  like  a 
rat,  and  broken  it. 

He  looked  down  at  his  victim  appeased,  ashamed,  and 
amazed ;  snuffed  him  all  over,  stared  at  him,  and  taking 
a  sudden  thought,  turned  round  and  trotted  off.  Bob 
took  the  dead  dog  up,  and  said,  "John,  we'll  bury  him 
after  tea."  "  Yes,"  said  I,  and  was  off  after  the  mastiff. 
He  made  up  the  Cowgate  at  a  rapid  swing  ;  he  had  for- 
gotten some  engagement.  He  turned  up  the  Candle- 
maker  Row,  and  stopped  at  the  Harrow  Inn. 

There  was  a  carrier's  cart  ready  to  start,  and  a  keen, 


RAB  AND   HIS   FRIENDS.  27 

thin,  impatient,  black-a-vised  little  man,  his  hand  at  his 
gray  horse's  head,  looking  about  angrily  for  something. 
"  Rab,  ye  thief ! "  said  he,  aiming  a  kick  at  my  great 
friend,  who  drew  cringing  up,  and  avoiding  the  heavy 
shoe  with  more  agility  than  dignity,  and  watching  his 
master's  eye,  slunk  dismayed  under  the  cart,  —  his  ears 
down,  and  as  much  as  he  had  of  tail  down  too. 

What  a  man  this  must  be  —  thought  I  —  to  whom 
my  tremendous  hero  turns  tail !  The  carrier  saw  the 
muzzle  hanging,  cut  and  useless,  from  his  neck,  and  I 
eagerly  told  him  the  story,  which  Bob  and  I  always 
thought,  and  still  think,  Homer,  or  King  David,  or  Sir 
Walter  alone  were  worthy  to  rehearse.  The  severe  lit- 
tle man  was  mitigated,  and  condescended  to  say,  "  Rab, 
my  man,  puir  Rabbie,"  —  whereupon  the  stump  of  a  tail 
rose  up,  the  ears  were  cocked,  the  eyes  filled,  and  were 
comforted  ;  the  two  friends  were  reconciled.  "  Hupp  !  " 
and  a  stroke  of  the  whip  were  given  to  Jess ;  and  off 
went  the  three. 

Bob  and  I  buried  the  Game  Chicken  that  night  (we 
had  not  much  of  a  tea)  in  the  back-green  of  his  house 
in  Melville  Street,  No.  17,  with  considerable  gravity  and 
silence  ;  and  being  at  the  time  in  the  Iliad,  and,  like  all 
boys,  Trojans,  we  called  him  Hector  of  course. 


Six  years  have  passed,  —  a  long  time  for  a  boy  and  a 
dog :  Bob  Ainslie  is  off  to  the  wars  ;  I  am  a  medical 
student,  and  clerk  at  Minto  House  Hospital. 

Rab  I  saw  almost  every  week,  on  the  Wednesday ; 


28  RAB  AND  HIS  FRIENDS. 

and  we  had  much  pleasant  intimacy.  I  found  the  way 
to  his  heart  by  frequent  scratching  of  his  huge  head, 
and  an  occasional  bone.  When  I  did  not  notice  him  he 
would  plant  himself  straight  before  me,  and  stand  wag- 
ging that  bud  of  a  tail,  and  looking  up,  with  his  head 
a  little  to  the  one  side.  His  master  I  occasionally  saw ; 
he  used  to  call  me  "  Maister  John,"  but  was  laconic  as 
any  Spartan. 

One  fine  October  afternoon,  I  was  leaving  the  hospital, 
when  I  saw  the  large  gate  open,  and  in  walked  Rab, 
with  that  great  and  easy  saunter  of  his.  He  looked  as 
if  taking  general  possession  of  the  place ;  like  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  entering  a  subdued  city,  satiated  with  vic- 
tory and  peace.  After  him  came  Jess,  now  white  from 
age,  with  her  cart ;  and  in  it  a  woman,  carefully  wrap- 
ped up,  —  the  carrier  leading  the  horse  anxiously,  and 
looking  back.  When  he  saw  me,  James  (for  his  name 
was  James  Noble)  made  a  curt  and  grotesque  "  boo,"  and 
said,  "  Maister  John,  this  is  the  mistress ;  she's  got  a 
trouble  in  her  breest  —  some  kind  o'  an  income  we're 
thinking'." 

By  this  time  I  saw  the  woman's  face  ;  she  was  sitting 
on  a  sack  filled  with  straw,  her  husband's  plaid  round 
her,  and  his  big-coat  with  its  large  white  metal  buttons, 
over  her  feet. 

I  never  saw  a  more  unforgetable  face  —  pale,  seri- 
ous, lonely*  delicate,  sweet,  without  being  at  all  what 
we  call  fine.  She  looked  sixty,  and  had  on  a  mutch, 
white  as  snow,  with  its  black  ribbon  ;  her  silvery,  smooth 
hair  setting  off  her  dark-gray  eyes  —  eyes  such  as  one 
sees  only  twice  or  thrice  in  a  lifetime,  full  of  suffering, 

1  It  is  not  easy  giving  this  look  by  one  word ;  it  was  expressive  of 
her  being  so  much  of  her  life  alone. 


RAB  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.  29 

full  also  of  the  overcoming  of  it:  her  eyebrows  black 
and  delicate,  and  her  mouth  firm,  patient,  and  contented, 
which  few  mouths  ever  are. 

As  I  have  said,  I  never  saw  a  more  beautiful  coun- 
tenance, or  one  more  subdued  to  settled  quiet.  "  Ailie," 
said  James,  "  this  is  Maister  John,  the  young  doctor ; 
Rab's  freend,  ye  ken.  We  often  speak  aboot  you,  doc- 
tor." She  smiled,  and  made  a  movement,  but  said 
nothing ;  and  prepared  to  come  down,  putting  her  plaid 
aside  and  rising.  Had  Solomon,  in  all  his  glory,  been 
handing  down  the  Queen  of  Sheba  at  his  palace  gate, 
he  could  not  have  done  it  more  daintily,  more  tenderly, 
more  like  a  gentleman,  than  did  James  the  Howgate 
carrier,  when  he  lifted  down  Ailie  his  wife.  The  con- 
trast of  his  small,  swarthy,  weather-beaten,  keen,  worldly 
face  to  hers  —  pale,  subdued,  and  beautiful  —  was  some- 
thing wonderful.  Rab  looked  on  concerned  and  puz- 
zled, but  ready  for  anything  that  might  turn  up,  — 
were  it  to  strangle  the  nurse,  the  porter,  or  even  me. 
A^lie  and  he  seemed  great  friends. 

"  As  I  was  sayin'  she's  got  a  kind  o'  trouble  in  her 
breest,  doctor  ;  wull  ye  tak'  a  look  at  it  ?  "  "We  walked 
into  the  consulting-room,  all  four  ;  Rab  grim  and  comic, 
willing  to  be  happy  and  confidential  if  cause  could  be 
shown,  willing  also  to  be  the  reverse,  on  the  same  terms. 
Ailie  sat  down,  undid  her  open  gown  and  her  lawn  hand- 
kerchief round  her  neck,  and  without  a  word,  showed 
me  her  right  breast.  I  looked  at  and  examined  it  care- 
fully, —  she  and  James  watching  me,  and  Rab  eying 
all  three.  "What  could  I  say  ?  there  it  was,  that  had 
once  been  so  soft,  so  shapely,  so  white,  so  gracious  and 
bountiful,  so  "  full  of  all  blessed  conditions,"  —  hard  as 
a  stone,  a  centre  of  horrid  pain,  making  that  pale  face, 


30  EAB  AND  HIS   FEIENDS. 

with  its  grajr,  lucid,  reasonable  eyes,  and  its  sweet  re- 
solved mouth,  express  the  full  measure  of  suffering  over- 
come. Why  was  that  gentle,  modest,  sweet  woman, 
clean  and  lovable,  condemned  by  God  to  bear  such  a 
burden  ? 

I  got  her  away  to  bed.  "May  Rab  and  me  bide?" 
said  James.  "  You  may  ;  and  Rab,  if  he  will  behave 
himself."  u  I'se  warrant  he's  do  that,  doctor ; "  and  in 
slank  the  faithful  beast.  I  wish  you  could  have  seen 
him.  There  are  no  such  dogs  now.  He  belonged  to  a 
lost  tribe.  As  I  have  said,  he  was  brindled  and  gray 
like  Rubislaw  granite  ;  his  hair  short,  hard,  and  close, 
like  a  lion's ;  his  body  thick  set,  like  a  little  bull  —  a 
sort  of  compressed  Hercules  of  a  dog.  He  must  have 
been  ninety  pounds'  weight,  at  the  least ;  he  had  a  large 
blunt  head  ;  his  muzzle  black  as  night,  his  mouth  blacker 
than  any  night,  a  tooth  or  two  —  being  all  he  had  — 
gleaming  out  of  his  jaws  of  darkness.  His  head  was 
scarred  with  the-  records  of  old  wounds,  a  sort  of  series 
of  fields  of  battle  all  over  it ;  one  eye  out,  one  ear  cropped 
as  close  as  was  Archbishop  Leighton's  father's ;  the  re- 
maining eye  had  the  power  of  two ;  and  above  it,  and  in 
constant  communication  with  it,  was  a  tattered  rag  of  an 
ear,  which  was  forever  unfurling  itself,  like  an  old  flag ; 
and  then  that  bud  of  a  tail,  about  one  inch  long,  if  it 
could  in  any  sense  be  said  to  be  long,  being  as  broad  as 
long  —  the  mobility,  the  instantaneousness  of  that  bud 
were  very  funny  and  surprising,  and  its  expressive  twink- 
lings and  winkings,  the  intercommunications  between  the 
eye,  the  ear,  and  it,  were  of  the  oddest  and  swiftest. 

Rab  had  the  dignity  and  simplicity  of  great  size;  and 
having  fought  his  way  all  along  the  road  to  absolute  su- 
premacy, he  was  as  mighty  in  his  own  line   as  Julius 


RAB  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.  31 

Caesar  or  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  had  the  gravity1 
of  all  great  fighters. 

You  must  have  often  observed  the  likeness  of  certain 
men  to  certain  animals,  and  of  certain  dogs  to  men. 
Now,  I  never  looked  at  Rab  without  thinking  of  the 
great  Baptist  preacher,  Andrew  Fuller.2  The  same 
large,  heavy,  menacing,  combative,  sombre,  honest  coun- 
tenance, the  same  deep  inevitable  eye,  the  same  look, 
—  as  of  thunder  asleep,  but  ready,  —  neither  a  dog  nor 
a  man  to  be  trifled  with. 

Next  day,  my  master,  the  surgeon,  examined  Ailie. 
There  was  no  doubt  it  must  kill  her,  and  soon.  It  could 
be  removed  —  it  might  never  return  —  it  would  give  her 
speedy  relief — she  should  have  it  done.  She  curtsied, 
looked  at  James,  and  said,  "When?"  "To-morrow," 
said  the  kind  surgeon  —  a  man  of  few  words.  She  and 
James  and  Rab  and  I  retired.  I  noticed  that  he  and 
she  spoke  little,  but  seemed  to  anticipate  everything 
in  each  other.  The  following  day,  at  noon,  the  students 
came  in,  hurrying  up  the  great  stair.     At  the  first  land- 

i  A  Highland  game-keeper,  when  asked  why  a  certain  terrier,  of 
singular  pluck,  was  so  much  more  solemn  than  the  other  dogs,  said, 
"Oh,  Sir,  life's  full  o'  sairiousness  to  him — he  just  never  can  get 
enuff  o'  fechtin'." 

2  Fuller  was,  in  early  life,  when  a  farmer  lad  at  Soham,  famous  as 
a  boxer;  not  quarrelsome,  but  not  without  "the  stern  delight"  a 
man  of  strength  and  courage  feels  in  their  exercise.  Dr.  Charles 
Stewart,  of  Dunearn,  whose  rare  gifts  and  graces  as  a  physician,  a 
divine,  a  scholar,  and  a  gentleman,  live  only  in  the  memory  of  those 
few  who  knew  and  survive  him,  liked  to  tell  how  Mr.  Fuller  used  to 
say,  that  when  he  was  in  the  pulpit,  and  saw  a  buirdly  man  come 
nL>i)g  the  passage,  he  would  instinctively  draw  himself  up,  measure 
his  imaginary  antagonist,  and  forecast  how  he  would  deal  with  him, 
his  hands  meanwhile  condensing  into  fists,  and  tending  to  "  square." 
He  must  have  been  a  hard  hitter  if  he  boxed  as  he  preached  —  what 
'•  The  Fancy  "  would  call  "  an  ugly  customer." 


32  EAB   AND  HIS   FRIENDS. 

ing-place,  on  a  small  well-known  blackboard,  was  a  bit 
of  paper  fastened  by  wafers,  and  many  remains  of  old 
wafers  beside  it.  On  the  paper  were  the  words,  —  "  An 
operation  to-day.     J.  B.  Clerk." 

Up  ran  the  youths,  eager  to  secure  good  places :  in 
they  crowded,  full  of  interest  and  talk.  "What's  the 
case  ?  "   "  Which  side  is  it  ?  " 

Don't  think  them  heartless ;  they  are  neither  better 
nor  worse  than  you  or  I ;  they  get  over  their  profes- 
sional horrors,  and  into  their  proper  work  —  and  in 
them  pity  —  as  an  emotion,  ending  in  itself  or  at  best 
in  tears  and  a  long-drawn  breath,  lessens,  while  pity  as 
a  motive,  is  quickened,  and  gains  power  and  purpose. 
It  is  well  for  poor  human  nature  that  it  is  so. 

The  operating  theatre  is  crowded ;  much  talk  and  fun, 
and  all  the  cordiality  and  stir  of  youth.  The  surgeon 
with  his  staff  of  assistants  is  there.  In  comes  Ailie : 
one  look  at  her  quiets  and  abates  the  eager  students. 
That  beautiful  -old  woman  is  too  much  for  them  ;  they 
sit  down,  and  are  dumb,  and  gaze  at  her.  These  rough 
boys  feel  the  power  of  her  presence.  She  walks  in 
quickly,  but  without  haste ;  dressed  in  her  mutch,  her 
neckerchief,  her  white  dimity  short-gown,  her  black  bom- 
bazine petticoat,  showing  her  white  worsted  stockings 
and  her  carpet-shoes.  Behind  her  was  James  with  Bab. 
James  sat  down  in  the  distance,  and  took  that  huge  and 
noble  head  between  his  knees.  Bab  looked  perplexed 
and  dangerous ;  forever  cocking  his  ear  and  dropping  it 
as  fast. 

Ailie  stepped  up  on  a  seat,  and  laid  herself  on  the 
table,  as  her  friend  the  surgeon  told  her  ;  arranged  her- 
self, gave  a  rapid  look  at  James,  shut  her  eyes,  rested 
herself  on  me,  and  took  my  hand.     The  operation  was 


RAB  AND   HIS  FRIENDS.  33 

at  once  begun  ;  it  was  necessarily  slow  ;  and  chloroform 
—  one  of  God's  best  gifts  to  his  suffering  children  — 
was  then  unknown.  The  surgeon  did  his  work.  The 
pale  face  showed  its  pain,  but  was  still  and  silent.  Rab's 
soul  was  working  within  him  ;  he  saw  that  something 
strange  was  going  on,  —  blood  flowing  from  his  mis- 
tress, and  she  suffering ;  his  ragged  ear  was  up,  a%d 
importunate  ;  he  growled  and  gave  now  and  then  a  sharp 
impatient  yelp  ;  he  would  have  liked  to  have  done  some- 
thing to  that  man.  But  James  had  him  firm,  and  gave 
him  a  glower  from  time  to  time,  and  an  intimation  of  a 
possible  kick  ;  —  all  the  better  for  James,  it  kept  his 
eye  and  his  mind  off  Ailie. 

It  is  over :  she  is  dressed,  steps  gently  and  decently 
down  from  the  table,  looks  for  James ;  then,  turning  to 
the  surgeon  and  the  students,  she  curtsies,  —  and  in  a 
low,  clear  voice,  begs  their  pardon  if  she  has  behaved 
ill.  The  students  —  all  of  us  —  wept  like  children  ;  the 
surgeon  happed  her  up  carefully, —  and,  resting  on  James 
and  me,  Ailie  went  to  her  room,  Rab  following.  We 
put  her  to  bed.  James  took  off  his  heavy  shoes,  cram- 
med with  tackets,  heel-capt  and  toe-capt,  and  put  them 
carefully  under  the  table,  saying,  "Maister  John,  I'm 
for  nane  o'  yer  strynge  nurse  bodies  for  Ailie.  I'll  be 
her  nurse,  and  I'll  gang  aboot  on  my  stockin'  soles  as 
canny  as  pussy."  And  so  he  did;  and  handy  and 
clever,  and  swift  and  tender  as  any  woman,  was  that 
horny-handed,  snell,  peremptory  little  man.  Everything 
she  got  he  gave  her :  he  seldom  slept ;  and  often  I 
saw  his  small  shrewd  eyes  out  of  the  darkness,  fixed 
on  her.     As  before,  they  spoke  little. 

Rab   behaved  well,  never    moving,  showing    us  how 

meek  and  gentle  he  could  be,  and  occasionally,  in   his 
3 


34  RAB  AND  HIS   FRIENDS. 

sleep,  letting  us  know  that  he  was  demolishing  some 
adversary.  He  took  a  walk  with  me  every  day,  gen- 
erally to  the  Candlemaker  Row ;  but  he  was  sombre 
and  mild;  declined  doing  battle,  though  some  fit  cases 
offered,  and  indeed  submitted  to  sundry  indignities ; 
and  was  always  very  ready  to  turn,  and  came  faster 
bftck,  and  trotted  up  the  stair  with  much  lightness,  and 
went  straight  to  that  door. 

Jess,  the  mare,  had  been  sent,  with  her  weather- 
worn cart,  to  Howgate,  and  had  doubtless  her  own 
dim  and  placid  meditations  and  confusions,  on  the  ab- 
sence of  her  master  and  Rab,  and  her  unnatural  free- 
dom from  the  road  and  her  cart. 

For  some  days  Ailie  did  well.  The  wound  healed 
"  by  the  first  intention ; "  for  as  James  said,  "  Oor 
Ailie's  skin's  ower  clean  to  beil."  The  students  came 
in  quiet  and  anxious,  and  surrounded  her  bed.  She 
said  she  liked  to  see  their  young,  honest  faces.  The 
surgeon  dressed  her,  and  spoke  to  her  in  his  own  short 
kind  way,  pitying  her  through  his  eyes,  Rab  and  James 
outside  the  circle,  —  Rab  being  now  reconciled,  and 
even  cordial,  and  having  made  up  his  mind  that  as 
yet  nobody  required  worrying,  but,  as  you  may  suppose, 
semper  paratus. 

So  far  well :  but,  four  days  after  the  operation,  my 
patient  had  a  sudden  and  long  shivering,  a  "  groosin'," 
as  she  called  it.  I  saw  her  soon  after ;  her  eyes  were 
too  bright,  her  cheek  colored ;  she  was  restless,  and 
ashamed  of  being  so ;  the  balance  was  lost ;  mischief 
had  begun.  On  looking  at  the  wound,  a  blush  of  red 
told  the  secret :  her  pulse  was  rapid,  her  breathing 
anxious  and  quick,  she  wasn't  herself,  as  she  said,  and 
was  vexed  at  her  restlessness.    We  tried  what  we  could. 


RAB  AND  HIS   FRIENDS.  35 

James  did  everything,  was  everywhere  ;  never  in  the 
way,  never  out  of  it ;  Rab  subsided  under  the  table 
into  a  dark  place,  and  was  motionless,  all  but  his  eye, 
which  followed  every  one.  Ailie  got  worse ;  began  to 
wander  in  her  mind,  gently ;  was  more  demonstrative 
in  her  ways  to  James,  rapid  in  her  questions,  and 
sharp  at  times.  He  was  vexed,  and  said,  "  She  was 
never  that  way  afore ;  no,  never."  For  a  time  she 
knew  her  head  was  wrong,  and  was  always  asking  our 
pardon  —  the  dear,  gentle  old  woman:  then  delirium 
set  in  strong,  without  pause.  Her  brain  gave  way, 
and  then  came  that  terrible  spectacle, — 

"  The  intellectual  power,  through  words  and  things, 
Went  sounding  on  its  dim  and  perilous  way;  " 

she  sang  bits  of  old  songs  and  Psalms,  stopping  sud- 
denly, mingling  the  Psalms  of  David  and  the  diviner 
words  of  his  Son  and  Lord,  with  homely  odds  and  ends 
and  scraps  of  ballads. 

Nothing  more  touching,  or  in  a  sense  more  strangely 
beautiful,  did  I  ever  witness.  Her  tremulous,  rapid, 
affectionate,  eager,  Scotch  voice,  —  the  swift,  aimless, 
bewildered  mind,  the  baffled  utterance,  the  bright  and 
perilous  eye ;  some  wild  words,  some  household  cares, 
something  for  James,  the  names  of  the  dead,  Rab  called 
rapidly  and  in  a  "  fremyt "  voice,  and  he  starting  up 
surprised,  and  slinking  off  as  if  he  were  to  blame  some- 
how, or  had  been  dreaming  he  heard ;  many  eager 
questions  and  beseechings  which  James  and  I  could 
make  nothing  of,  and  on  which  she  seemed  to  set  her 
all,  and  then  sink  back  ununderstood.  It  was  very 
sad,  but  better  than  many  things  that  are  not  called  sad. 
James  hovered  about,  put  out  and  miserable,  but  active 


36  EAB  AND  HIS   FRIENDS. 

and  exact  as  ever ;  read  to  her  when  there  was  a  lull, 
short  bits  from  the  Psalms,  prose  and  metre,  chanting 
the  latter  in  his  own  rude  and  serious  way,  showing 
great  knowledge  of  the  tit  words,  bearing  up  like  a 
man,  and  doating  over  her  as  his  "  ain  Ailie."  "  Ailie, 
ma  woman  !  "     "  Ma  ain  bonnie  wee  dawtie  !  " 

The  end  was  drawing  on :  the  golden  bowl  was  break 
ing  ;  the  silver  cord  was  fast  being  loosed  —  that  animula 
blandula,  vagula,  hospes,  comesque,  was  about  to  flee. 
The  body  and  the  soul  —  companions  for  sixty  years  — 
were  being  sundered,  and  taking  leave.  She  was  walk- 
ing alone,  through  the  valley  of  that  shadow,  into  which 
•me  day  we  must  all  enter,  —  and  yet  she  was  not 
alone,  for  we  know  whose  rod  and  staff  were  comfort- 
ing her. 

One  night  she  had  fallen  quiet,  and  as  we  hoped, 
asleep;  her  eyes  were  shut.  We  put  down  the  gas, 
and  sat  watching  her.  Suddenly  she  sat  up  in  bed,  and 
taking  a  bed-gown  which  was  lying  on  it  rolled  up,  she 
held  it  eagerly  to  her  breast,  —  to  the  right  side.  We 
could  see  her  eyes  bright  with  a  surprising  tenderness 
and  joy,  bending  over  this  bundle  of  clothes.  She  held 
it  as  a  woman  holds  her  sucking  child  ;  opening  out  her 
night-gown  impatiently,  and  holding  it  close,  and  brood- 
ing over  it,  and  murmuring  foolish  little  words,  as  over 
one  whom  his  mother  comforteth,  and  who  sucks  and 
is  satisfied.  It  was  pitiful  and  strange  to  see  her 
wasted  dying  look,  keen  and  yet  vague  —  her  immense 
love. 

"  Preserve  me  ! "  groaned  James,  giving  way.  And 
then  she  rocked  back  and  forward,  as  if  to  make  it 
sleep,  hushing  it,  and  wasting  on  it  her  infinite  fond- 
ness.    "  Wae's  me,  doctor ;  I  declare  she's  thinkin'  it's 


EAB  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.  37 

that  bairn."  "What  bairn?"  "The  only  bairn  we 
ever  had ;  our  wee  Mysie,  and  she's  in  the  Kingdom, 
forty  years  and  mair."  It  was  plainly  true  :  the  pain 
in  the  breast,  telling  its  urgent  story  to  a  bewildered, 
ruined  brain,  was  misread  and  mistaken  ;  it  suggested 
to  her  the  uneasiness  of  a  breast  full  of  milk,  and  then 
the  child ;  and  so  again  once  more  they  were  together, 
and  she  had  her  ain  wee  Mysie  in  her  bosom. 

This  was  the  close.  She  sank  rapidly :  the  delirium 
left  her;  but,  as  she  whispered,  she  was  "clean  silly;" 
it  was  the  lightening  before  the  final  darkness.  After 
having  for  some  time  lain  still  —  her  eyes  shut,  she 
said  "  James ! "  He  came  close  to  her,  and  lifting  up 
her  calm,  clear,  beautiful  eyes,  she  gave  him  a  long  look, 
turned  to  me  kindly  but  shortly,  looked  for  Rab  but 
could  not  see  him,  then  turned  to  her  husband  again, 
as  if  she  would  never  leave  off  looking,  shut  her  eyes, 
and  composed  herself.  She  lay  for  some  time  breath- 
ing quick,  and  passed  away  so  gently,  that  when  we 
thought  she  was  gone,  James,  in  his  old-fashioned  way, 
held  the  mirror  to  her  face.  After  a  long  pause,  one 
small  spot  of  dimness  was  breathed  out  ;  it  vanished 
away,  and  never  returned,  leaving  the  blank  clear  dark- 
ness of  the  mirror  without  a  stain.  "  What  is  our  life  ? 
it  is  even  a  vapor,  which  appeareth  for  a  little  time, 
and  then  vanisheth  away." 

Rab  all  this  time  had  been  full  awake  and  motionless  ; 
he  came  forward  beside  us :  Ailie's  hand,  which  James 
had  held,  was  hanging  down  ;  it  was  soaked  with  his 
tears  ;  Rab  licked  it  all  over  carefully,  looked  at  her,  and 
returned  to  his  place  under  the  table. 

James  and  I  sat,  I  don't  know  how  long,  but  for  some 
time,  —  saying  nothing:  he  started  up  abruptly,  and  with 


38  RAB  AND   HIS  FRIENDS. 

some  noise  went  to  the  table,  and  putting  his  right  fore 
and  middle  fingers  each  into  a  shoe,  pulled  them  out,  and 
put  them  on,  breaking  one  of  the  leather  latchets,  and 
muttering  in  anger,  "  I  never  did  the  like  o'  that  afore ! " 

I  believe  he  never  did  ;  nor  after  either.  "  Eab  ! "  he 
said  roughly,  and  pointing  with  his  thumb  to  the  bottom 
of  the  bed.  Rab  leapt  up,  and  settled  himself;  his  head 
and  eye  to  the  dead  face.  "  Maister  John,  ye'll  wait  for 
me,"  said  the  carrier  ;  and  disappeared  in  the  darkness, 
thundering  down-stairs  in  his  heavy  shoes.  I  ran  to  a 
front  window ;  there  he  was,  already  round  the  house, 
and  out  at  the  gate,  fleeing  like  a  shadow. 

I  was  afraid  about  him,  and  yet  not  afraid  ;  so  I  sat 
down  beside  Rab,  and  being  wearied,  fell  asleep.  I 
awoke  from  a  sudden  noise  outside.  It  was  November, 
and  there  had  been  a  heavy  fall  of  snow.  Rab  was  in 
statu  quo ;  he  heard  the  noise  too,  and  plainly  knew 
it,  but  never  moved.  I  looked  out ;  and  there,  at  the 
gate,  in  the  dim  morning  —  for  the  sun  was  not  up  — 
was  Jess  and  the  cart,  —  a  cloud  of  steam  rising  from 
the  old  mare.  I  did  not  see  James  ;  he  was  already  at 
the  door,  and  came  up  the  stairs,  and  met  me.  It  was 
less  than  three  hours  since  he  left,  and  he  must  have  post- 
ed out  —  who  knows  how  ?  —  to  Howgate,  full  nine  miles 
off;  yoked  Jess,  and  driven  her  astonished  into  town. 
He  had  an  armful  of  blankets,  and  was  streaming  vfith 
perspiration.  He  nodded  to  me,  spread  out  on  the  floor 
two  pairs  of  clean  old  blankets  having  at  their  corners, 
"  A.  G.,  1794,"  in  large  letters  in  red  worsted.  These 
were  the  initials  of  Alison  Gramme,  and  James  may  have 
looked  in  at  her  from  without  —  himself  unseen  but  not 
unthought  of — when  he  was  "  wat,  wat,  and  weary," 
and  after  having  walked  many  a  mile  over  the  hills,  may 


RAB  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.  39 

have  seen  her  sitting,  while  "  a'  the  lave  were  sleepin' ; " 
and  by  the  firelight  working  her  name  on  the  blankets, 
for  her  ain  James's  bed. 

He  motioned  Rab  down,  and  taking  his  wife  in  his 
arms,  laid  her  in  the  blankets,  and  happed  her  carefully 
and  firmly  up,  leaving  the  face  uncovered ;  and  then  lift- 
ing her,  he  nodded  again  sharply  to  me,  and  with  a  re- 
solved but  utterly  miserable  face,  strode  along  the  pas- 
sage, and  down-stairs,  followed  by  Rab.  I  followed  with 
a  light ;  but  he  didn't  need  it.  I  went  out,  holding  stu- 
pidly the  candle  in  my  hand  in  the  calm  frosty  air ;  we 
were  soon  at  the  gate.  I  could  have  helped  him,  but  I 
saw  he  was  not  to  be  meddled  with,  and  he  was  strong, 
and  did  not  need  it.  He  laid  her  down  as  tenderly,  as 
safely,  as  he  had  lifted  her  out  ten  days  before  —  as  ten- 
derly as  when  he  had  her  first  in  his  arms  when  she  was 
only  "  A.  G.,"  —  sorted  her,  leaving  that  beautiful  sealed 
face  open  to  the  heavens ;  and  then  taking  Jess  by  the 
head,  he  moved  away.  He  did  not  notice  me,  neither 
did  Rab,  who  presided  behind  the  cart. 

I  stood  till  they  passed  through  the  long  shadow  of 
the  College,  and  turned  up  Nicolson  Street.  I  heard 
the  solitary  cart  sound  through  the  streets,  and  die  away 
and  come  again  ;  and  I  returned,  thinking  of  that  com- 
pany going  up  Libberton  Brae,  then  along  Roslin  Muir, 
the  morning  light  touching  the  Pentlands  and  making 
them  like  on-looking  ghosts ;  then  down  the  hill  through 
Auchindinny  woods,  past  "haunted  Woodhouselee  ;"  and 
as  daybreak  came  sweeping  up  the  bleak  Lammermuirs, 
and  fell  on  his  own  door,  the  company  would  stop,  and 
James  would  take  the  key,  and  lift  Ailie  up  again,  laying 
her  on  her  own  bed,  and,  having  put  Jess  up,  would  re- 
turn with  Rab  and  shut  the  door. 


40  RAB  AND  HIS   FRIENDS. 

James  buried  his  wife,  with  his  neighbors  mourning. 
Rab  inspecting  the  solemnity  from  a  distance.  It  was 
snow,  and  that  black  ragged  hole  would  look  strange 
in  the  midst  of  the  swelling  spotless  cushion  of  white. 
James  looked  after  everything  ;  then  rather  suddenly 
fell  ill,  and  took  to  bed ;  was  insensible  when  the  doctor 
came,  and  soon  died.  A  sort  of  low  fever  was  prevailing 
in  the  village,  and  his  want  of  sleep,  his  exhaustion,  and 
his  misery,  made  him  apt  to  take  it.  The  grave  was  not 
difficult  to  reopen.  A  fresh  fall  of  snow  had  again  made 
all  things  white  and  smooth ;  Rab  once  more  looked  on, 
and  slunk  home  to  the  stable. 

And  what  of  Rab  ?  I  asked  for  him  next  week  at  the 
new  carrier  who  got  the  goodwill  of  James's  business,  and 
was  now  master  of  Jess  and  her  cart.  "  How's  Rab  ?  " 
He  put  me  off,  and  said  rather  rudely,  "  What's  your 
business  wi'  the  dowg  ?  "  I  was  not  to  be  so  put  off. 
"Where's  Rab?"  He,  getting  confused  and  red,  and 
intermeddling  with  his  hair,  said,  "'Deed,  sir,  Rab's  deid." 
"Dead!  what  did  he  die  of?"  "  Weel,  sir,"  said  he, 
getting  redder,  "  he  didna  exactly  dee  ;  he  was  killed. 
I  had  to  brain  him  wi'  a  rack-pin  ;  there  was  nae  doin' 
wi'  him.  He  lay  in  the  treviss  wi'  the  mear,  and  wadna 
come  oot.  I  tempit  him  wi'  kail  and  meat,  but  he  wad 
tak  naething,  and  keepit  me  frae  feedin'  the  beast,  and 
lie  was  aye  gur  gurrin',  and  grup  gruppin'  me  by  the 
legs.  1  was  laith  to  make  awa  wi'  the  auld  dowg,  his 
like  wasna  atween  this  and  Thornhill,  —  but,  'deed,  sir, 
I  could  do  naething  else."  I  believed  him.  Fit  end  for 
Rab,  quick  and  complete.  His  teeth  and  his  friends 
gone,  why  should  he  keep  the  peace,  and  be  civil  ? 


«  With  BRAINS,  Sir: 


"  Multi  multa  sciunt,  pauci  multum." 

"  It  is  one  thing  to  wish  to  have  truth  on  our  side,  and  another  thing 
(o  icish  to  be  on  the  side  of  truth." — Whately. 

" ' ' AxaJ-ainupog  rolq  iroKkoic  7}  ^nTTjatg  rrjc  ukntyeiae,  koX  em  tq 
i-oifia  [mTikov  TpenovTaL."  —  Thuctdides. 

"  The  most  perfect  philosophy  of  the  natural  kind,  only  staves  off  our 
ignorance  a  Utile  longer ;  as,  perhaps,  the  most  perfect  philosophy  of 
the  moral  or  metaphysical  kind,  serves  only  to  discover  larger  portions  of 
it."  —  David  Hume. 


"WITH  BRAINS,   SIR." 

^^>  RAY,  Mr.  Opie,  may  I  ask  what  you  mix 
your  colors  with  ? "  said  a  brisk  dilettante 
student  to  the  great  painter.  "With  Brains, 
sir,"  was  the  gruff  reply  —  and  the  right 
one.  It  did  not  give  much  of  what  we  call  information ; 
it  did  not  expound  the  principles  and  rules  of  the  art ;  but, 
if  the  inquirer  had  the  commodity  referred  to,  it  would 
awaken  him  ;  it  would  set  him  a-going,  a-thinking,  and 
a-painting  to  good  purpose.  If  he  had  not  the  where- 
withal, as  was  likely  enough,  the  less  he  had  to  do  with 
colors  and  their  mixture  the  better.  Many  other  artists, 
when  asked  such  a  question,  would  have  either  set  about 
detailing  the  mechanical  composition  of  such  and  such 
colors,  in  such  and  such  proportions,  rubbed  up  so  and 
so  ;  or  perhaps  they  would  (and  so  much  the  better,  but 
not  the  be>t)  have  shown  him  how  they  laid  them  on  ; 
but  even  this  would  leave  him  at  the  critical  point.  Opie 
preferred  going  to  the  quick  and  the  heart  of  the  matter : 
"  With  Brains,  sir." 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  was  taken  by  a  friend  to  see  a 
picture.  He  was  anxious  to  admire  it,  and  he  looked  it 
over  with  a  keen  and  careful  but  favorable  eye.  "  Capi- 
tal composition  ;  correct  drawing  ;  the  color,  tone,  chi- 
aroscuro  excellent ;    but  —  but  —  it  wants,  hang  it,  it 


44  WITH  BRAINS,   SIR. 

wants  —  That  I "  snapping  his  fingers  ;  and,  wanting 
"  that,"  though  it  had  everything  else,  it  was  worth  noth- 
ing. 

Again,  Etty  was  appointed  teacher  of  the  students  of 
(he  Royal  Academy,  having  been  preceded  by  a  clever, 
talkative,  scientific  expounder  of  aesthetics,  who  delighted 
to  tell  the  young  men  how  everything  was  done,  how  to 
copy  this,  and  how  to  express  that.  A  student  came  up 
to  the  new  master,  "  How  should  I  do  this,  sir?"  "Sup- 
pose you  try."  Another,  "  What  does  this  mean,  Mr. 
Etty  ?  "  "  Suppose  you  look."  "  But  I  have  looked." 
"  Suppose  you  look  again."  And  they  did  try,  and  they 
did  look,  and  looked  again  ;  and  they  saw  and  achieved 
what  they  never  could  have  done,  had  the  how  or  the 
what  (supposing  this  possible,  which  it  is  not  in  its  full 
and  highest  meaning)  been  told  them,  or  clone  for  them ; 
in  the  one  case,  sight  and  action  were  immediate,  exact, 
intense,  and  secure  ;  in  the  other  mediate,  feeble,  and  lost 
as  soon  as  gained.  But  what  are  "  Brains  "  ?  what  did 
Opie  mean  ?  and  what  is  Sir  Joshua's  "  That  "  ?  What 
is  included  in  it  ?  and  what  is  the  use,  or  the  need  of 
trying  and  trying,  of  missing  often  before  you  hit,  when 
you  can  be  told  at  once  and  be  done  with  it ;  or  of  look- 
ing when  you  may  be  shown  ?  Everything  in  medicine 
and  in  painting  —  practical  arts  —  as  means  to  ends,  let 
their  scientific  enlargement  be  ever  so  rapid  and  im- 
mense, depends  upon  the  right  answers  to  these  ques- 
tions. 

First  of  all,  "  brains,"  in  the  painter,  are  not  diligence, 
knowledge,  skill,  sensibility,  a  strong  will,  or  a  high  aim, 
—  he  may  have  all  these,  and  never  paint  anything  so 
truly  good  and  effective  as  the  rugged  woodcut  we  must 
all  remember,  of  Apollyon  bestriding  the  whole  breadth 


WITH  BRAINS,  SIR.  45 

of  the  way,  and  Christian  girding  at  him  like  a  man,  in 
the  old  sixpenny  Pilgrim's  Progress  ;  and  a  young  medi- 
cal student  may  have  zeal,  knowledge,  ingenuity,  atten- 
tion, a  good  eye  and  a  steady  hand  —  he  may  be  an 
accomplished  anatomist,  stethoscopist,  histologist,  and  an- 
alyst ;  and  yet,  with  all  this,  and  all  the  lectures,  and  all 
the  books,  and  all  the  sayings,  and  all  the  preparations, 
drawings,  tables,  and  other  helps  of  his  teachers,  crowded 
into  his  memory  or  his  note-books,  he  may  be  beaten  in 
treating  a  whitlow  or  a  colic,  by  the  nurse  in  the  wards 
where  he  was  clerk,  or  by  the  old  country  doctor  who 
brought  him  into  the  world,  and  who  listens  with  such 
humble  wonder  to  his  young  friend's  account,  on  his  com- 
ing home  after  each  session,  of  all  he  had  seen  and  done, 
—  of  all  the  last  astonishing  discoveries  and  operations 
of  the  day.  What  the  painter  wants,  in  addition  to,  and 
as  the  complement  of,  the  other  elements,  is  genius  and 
sense  ;  what  the  doctor  needs  to  crown  and  give  worth 
and  safety  to  his  accomplishments,  is  sense  and  genius : 
in  the  first  case,  more  of  this,  than  of  that ;  in  the  sec- 
ond, more  of  that,  than  of  this.  These  are  the  "  Brains  " 
and  the  "  That." 

And  what  is  genius  ?  and  what  is  sense  ?  Genius  is  a 
peculiar  native  aptitude,  or  tendency,  to  any  one  calling 
or  pursuit  over  all  others.  A  man  may  have  a  genius  for 
governing,  for  killing,  or  for  curing  the  greatest  number 
of  men,  and  in  the  best  possible  manner :  a  man  may 
have  a  genius  for  the  fiddle,  or  his  mission  may  be  for 
the  tight-rope,  or  the  Jew's  harp  ;  or  it  may  be  a  natural 
turn  for  seeking,  and  finding,  and  teaching  truth,  and  for 
doing  the  greatest  possible  good  to  mankind ;  or  it  may 
be  a  turn  equally  natural  for  seeking,  and  finding,  and 
teaching  a  lie,  and  doing  the  maximum  of  mischief.     It 


46  WITH  BRAINS,  SIR. 

was  as  natural,  as  inevitable,  for  Wilkie  to  develop  him- 
self into  a  painter,  and  such  a  painter  as  we  know  him 
to  have  been,  as  it  is  for  an  acorn  when  planted  to  grow 
up  into  an  oak,  a  specific  quercus  robur.  But  genius,  and 
nothing  else,  is  not  enough,  even  for  a  painter  ;  he  must 
likewise  have  sense;  and  what  is  sense?  Sense  drives, 
or  ought  to  drive,  the  coach  ;  sense  regulates,  combines, 
restrains,  commands,  all  the  rest  —  even  the  genius;  and 
sense  implies  exactness  and  soundness,  power  and  promp- 
titude of  mind. 

Then  for  the  young  doctor,  he  must  have  as  his  main, 
his  master  faculty,  sense  —  Brains  —  vovs,  justness  of 
mind,  because  his  subject-matter  is  one  in  which  princi- 
ple works,  rather  than  impulse,  as  in  painting ;  the  un- 
derstanding has  first  to  do  with  it,  however  much  it  is 
worthy  of  the  full  exercise  of  the  feelings,  and  the  affec- 
tions. But  all  will  not  do,  if  genius  is  not  there,  —  a 
real  turn  for  the  profession.  It  may  not  be  a  liking  for  it 
—  some  of  the  best  of  its  practitioners  never  really  liked 
it,  at  least  liked  other  things  better ;  but  there  must  be  a 
fitness  of  faculty  of  body  and  mind  for  its  full,  constant, 
exact  pursuit.  This  sense  and  this  genius,  such  a  special 
therapeutic  gift,  had  Hippocrates,  Sydenham,  Pott,  Pinel, 
John  Hunter,  Delpech,  Dupuytren,  Kellie,  Cheyne,  Bail- 
lie,  and  Abercrombie.  "We  might,  to  pursue  the  subject, 
pick  out  painters  who  had  much  genius  and  little  or  no 
sense,  and  vice  versa  ;  and  physicians  and  surgeons,  who 
had  sense  without  genius,  and  genius  without  sense,  and 
some  perhaps  who  had  neither,  and  yet  were  noticeable, 
and,  in  their  own  sideways,  useful  men. 

But  our  great  object  will  be  gained  if  we  have  given 
our  young  readers  (and  these  remarks  are  addressed  ex- 
clusively to  students)  any  idea  of  what  we  mean,  if  wb 


WITH  BRAINS,   SIR.  47 

have  made  them  think,  and  look  inwards.  The  noble 
and  sacred  science  you  have  entered  on  is  large,  difficult, 
and  deep,  beyond  most  others ;  it  is  every  day  becoming 
larger,  deeper,  and  in  many  senses  more  difficult,  more 
complicated  and  involved.  It  requires  more  than  the 
average  intellect,  energy,  attention,  patience,  and  cour- 
age, and  that  singular  but  imperial  quality,  at  once  a 
gift  and  an  acquirement,  presence  of  mind — ayxwoia,  or 
nearness  of  the  vovs,  as  the  subtle  Greeks  called  it — than 
almost  any  other  department  of  human  thought  and  ac- 
tion, except  perhaps  that  of  ruling  men.  Therefore  it  is, 
that  we  hold  it  to  be  of  paramount  importance  that  the 
parents,  teachers,  and  friends  of  youths  intended  for  med- 
icine, and  above  all,  that  those  who  examine  them  on 
their  entering  on  their  studies,  should  at  least  (we  might 
safely  go  much  farther)  satisfy  themselves  as  far  as  they 
can,  that  they  are  not  below  par  in  intelligence  ;  they 
may  be  deficient  and  unapt,  qua  medici,  and  yet,  if 
taken  in  time,  may  make  excellent  men  in  other  use- 
ful and  honorable  callings. 

But  suppose  we  have  got  the  requisite  amount  and 
specific  kind  of  capacity,  how  are  we  to  fill  it  with  its 
means  ;  how  are  we  to  make  it  effectual  for  its  end  ? 
On  this  point  we  say  nothing,  except  that  the  fear  now- 
a-days,  is  rather  that  the  mind  gets  too  much  of  too 
many  things,  than  too  little  or  too  few.  But  this  means 
of  turning  knowledge  to  action,  making  it  what  Bacon 
meant  when  he  said  it  was  power,  invigorating  the  think- 
ing substance  —  giving  tone,  and  you  may  call  it  muscle 
and  nerve,  blood  and  bone,  to  the  mind  —  a  firm  gripe, 
and  a  keen  and  sure  eye ;  that  we  think,  is  far  too  little 
considered  or  cared  for  at  present,  as  if  the  mere  act 
of  filling  in  everything  forever  into  a  poor  lad's  brain, 


48  WITH  BRAINS,  SIR. 

would  give  him  the  ability  to  make  anything  of  it,  and 
above  all,  the  power  to  appropriate  the  small  portions 
of  true  nutriment,  and  reject  the  dregs. 

One  comfort  we  have,  that  in  the  main,  and  in  the 
last  resort,  there  is  really  very  little  that  can  be  done 
for  any  man  by  another.  Begin  with  the  sense  and  the 
genius  —  the  keen  appetite  and  the  good  digestion  — 
and,  amid  all  obstacles  and  hardships,  the  work  goes  on 
merrily  and  well ;  without  these,  we  all  know  what  a 
laborious  affair,  and  a  dismal,  it  is  to  make  an  incapable 
youth  apply.  Did  any  of  you  ever  set  yourselves  to 
keep  up  artificial  respiration,  or  to  trudge  about  for  a 
whole  night  with  a  narcotized  victim  of  opium,  or  trans- 
fuse blood  (your  own  perhaps)  into  a  poor,  fainting  ex- 
animate wretch  ?  If  so,  you  will  have  some  idea  of  the 
heartless  attempt,  and  its  generally  vain  and  miserable 
result,  to  make  a  dull  student  apprehend  —  a  debauched, 
interested,  knowing,  or  active  in  anything  beyond  the  base 
of  his  brain — *a  weak,  etiolated  intellect  hearty,  and  worth 
anything ;  and  yet  how  many  such  are  dragged  through 
their  dreary  curricula,  and  by  some  miraculous  process 
of  cramming,  and  equally  miraculous  power  of  turning 
their  insides  out,  get  through  their  examinations  :  and 
then  —  what  then?  providentially,  in  most  cases,  they 
find  their  level ;  the  broad  daylight  of  the  world  —  its 
shrewd  and  keen  eye,  its  strong  instinct  of  what  can, 
and  what  cannot  serve  its  purpose  —  puts  all,  except 
the  poor  object  himself,  to  rights ;  happy  is  it  for  him 
if  he  turns  to  some  new  and  more  congenial  pursuit 
in  time. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  how  are  the  brains  to  be 
strengthened,  the  sense  quickened,  the  genius  awakened, 
the  affections  raised  —  the  whole  man  turned  to  the  best 


WITH  BRAINS,  SIR.  49 

account  for  the  cure  of  his  fellow-men  ?  How  are  you, 
when  physics  and  physiology  are  increasing  so  mar- 
vellously, and  when  the  burden  of  knowledge,  the  quan- 
tity of  transferable  information,  of  registered  facts,  of 
current  names  —  and  such  names  !  ; —  is  so  infinite  : 
how  are  you  to  enable  a  student  to  take  all  in,  bear 
up  under  all,  and  use  it  as  not  abusing  it,  or  being 
abused  by  it  ?  You  must  invigorate  the  containing  and 
sustaining  mind,  you  must  strengthen  him  from  within, 
as  well  as  fill  him  from  without ;  you  must  discipline, 
nourish,  edify,  relieve,  and  refresh  his  entire  nature ; 
and  how  ?  We  have  no  time  to  go  at  large  into  this, 
but  we  will  indicate  what  we  mean :  —  encourage  Ian- 
guages,  especially  French  and  German,  at  the  early  part 
of  their  studies ;  encourage  not  merely  the  book  knowl- 
edge, but  the  personal  pursuit  of  natural  history,  of 
field  botany,  of  geology,  of  zoology ;  give  the  young, 
fresh,  unforgetting  eye,  exercise  and  free  scope  upon 
the  infinite  diversity  and  combination  of  natural  colors, 
forms,  substances,  surfaces,  weights,  and  sizes  —  every- 
thing, in  a  word,  that  will  educate  their  eye  or  ear,  their 
touch,  taste,  and  smell,  their  sense  of  muscular  resist- 
ance ;  encourage  them  by  prizes,  to  make  skeletons, 
preparations,  and  collections  of  any  natural  objects ; 
and,  above  all,  try  and  get  hold  of  their  affections,  and 
make  them  put  their  hearts  into  their  work.  Let  them, 
if  possible,  have  the  advantage  of  a  regulated  tutorial, 
as  well  as  the  ordinary  professorial  system.  Let  there 
be  no  excess  in  the  number  of  classes  and  frequency 
of  lectures.  Let  them  be  drilled  in  composition  ;  by 
this  we  mean  the  writing  and  spelling  of  correct,  plain 
English  (a  matter  not  of  every-day  occurrence,  and  not 
on  the  increase),  —  let  them  be  directed  to  the  best 
4 


50  WITH  BRAINS,  SIR. 

books  of  the  old  masters  in  medicine,  and  examined  in 
them,  —  let  them  be  encouraged  in  the  use  of  a  whole- 
some and  manly  literature.  We  do  not  mean  popular 
or  even  modern  literature  —  such  as  Emerson,  Bulwer, 
or  Alison,  or  the  trash  of  inferior  periodicals  or  novels 
—  fashion,  vanity,  and  the  spirit  of  the  age,  will  attract 
them  readily  enough  to  all  these ;  we  refer  to  the  treas- 
ures of  our  elder  and  better  authors.  If  our  young 
medical  student  would  take  our  advice,  and  for  an  hour 
or  two  twice  a  week  take  up  a  volume  of  Shakspeare, 
Cervantes,  Milton,  Dryden,  Pope,  Cowper,  Montaigne, 
Addison,  Defoe,  Goldsmith,  Fielding,  Scott,  Charles 
Lamb,  Macaulay,  Jeffrey,  Sydney  Smith,  Helps,  Thack- 
eray, &c.,  not  to  mention  authors  on  deeper  and  more 
sacred  subjects  —  they  would  have  happier  and  healthier 
minds,  and  make  none  the  worse  doctors.  If  they,  by 
good  fortune  —  for  the  tide  has  set  in  strong  against  the 
literce  humaniores  —  have  come  off  with  some  Greek  or 
Latin,  we  would  supplicate  for  an  ode  of  Horace,  a 
couple  of  pages  of  Cicero  or  of  Pliny  once  a  month, 
and  a  page  of  Xenophon.  French  and  German  should 
be  mastered  either  before  or  during  the  first  years  of 
study.  They  will  never  afterwards  be  acquired  so  easily 
or  so  thoroughly,  and  the  want  of  them  may  be  bitterly 
felt  when  too  late. 

But  one  main  help,  we  are  persuaded,  is  to  be  found 
in  studying,  and  by  this  we  do  not  mean  the  mere  read- 
ing, but  the  digging  into  and  through,  the  energizing 
upon,  and  mastering  such  books  as  we  have  mentioned 
at  the  close  of  this  paper.  These  are  not,  of  course, 
the  only  works  we  would  recommend  to  those  who  wish 
to  understand  thoroughly,  and  to  make  up  their  minds, 
on  these  great  subjects  as  wholes ;  but  we  all  know  too 


WITH  BRAINS,  SIR.  51 

well  that  our  Art  is  long,  broad,  and  deep,  —  and  Time, 
opportunity,  and  our  little  hour,  brief  and  uncertain, 
therefore,  we  would  recommend  those  books  as  a  sort 
of  game  of  the  mind,  a  mental  exercise  —  like  cricket, 
a  gymnastic,  a  clearing  of  the  eyes  of  their  mind  as  with 
euphrasy,  a  strengthening  their  power  over  particulars, 
a  getting  fresh,  strong  views  of  worn  out,  old  things,  and, 
above  all,  a  learning  the  right  use  of  their  reason,  and 
by  knowing  their  own  ignorance  and  weakness,  finding 
true  knowledge  and  strength.  Taking  up  a  book  like 
Arnauld,  and  reading  a  chapter  of  his  lively,  manly 
sense,  is  like  throwing  your  manuals,  and  scalpels,  and 
microscopes,  and  natural  (most  unnatural)  orders  out 
of  your  hand  and  head,  and  taking  a  game  with  the 
Grange  Club,  or  a  run  to  the  top  of  Arthur  Seat.  Exer- 
tion quickens  your  pulse,  expands  your  lungs,  makes 
your  blood  warmer  and  redder,  fills  your  mouth  with 
the  pure  waters  of  relish,  strengthens  and  supples  your 
legs ;  and  though  on  your  way  to  the  top  you  may 
encounter  rocks,  and  baffling  debris,  and  gusts  of  fierce 
winds  rushing  out  upon  you  from  behind  corners,  just 
as  you  will  find  in  Arnauld,  and  all  truly  serious  and 
honest  books  of  the  kind,  difficulties  and  puzzles,  winds 
of  doctrine,  and  deceitful  mists  ;  still  you  are  rewarded 
at  the  top  by  the  wide  view.  You  see,  as  from  a  tower, 
the  end  of  all.  You  look  into  the  perfections  and  re- 
lations of  things.  You  see  the  clouds,  the  bright  lights 
and  the  everlasting  hills  on  the  far  horizon.  You  come 
down  the  hill  a  happier,  a  better,  and  a  hungrier  man, 
and  of  a  better  mind.  But,  as  we  said,  you  must  eat 
the  book,  you  must  crush  it,  and  cut  it  with  your  teeth 
and  swallow  it  ;  just  as  you  must  walk  up,  and  not  be 
carried  up  the  hill,  much  less    imagine  you  are   there, 


52  WITH  BRAINS,  SIR. 

or  look  upon  a  picture  of  what  you  would  see  were  you 
up,  however  accurately  or  artistically  done;  no  —  you 
yourself  must  do  both. 

Philosophy  —  the  love  and  the  possession  of  wisdom 

—  is  divided  into  two  things,  science  or  knowledge ;  and 
a  habit,  or  power  of  mind.  He  who  has  got  the  first  is 
not  truly  wise  unless  his  mind  has  reduced  and  assimi- 
lated it,  as  Dr.  Prout  would  have  said,  unless  he  appro- 
priates and  can  use  it  for  his  need. 

The  prime  qualifications  of  a  physician  may  be  sum- 
med up  in  the  words  Capax,  Perspicax,  Sagax,  Efficax. 
Capax  —  there  must  be  room  to  receive,  and  arrange, 
and  keep  knowledge  ;  Perspicax  —  senses  and  percep- 
tions, keen,  accurate,  and  immediate,  to  bring  in  mate- 
rials from  all  sensible  things  ;  Sagax  —  a  central  power 
of  knowing  what  is  what,  and  what  it  is  worth,  of  choos- 
ing and  rejecting,  of  judging  ;  and  finally,  Efficax  —  the 
will  and  the  way  —  the  power  to  turn  all  the  other  three 

—  capacity,  perspicacity,  sagacity,  to  account,  in  the  per- 
formance of  the  thing  in  hand,  and  thus  rendering  back 
to  the  outer  world,  in  a  new  and  useful  form,  what  you 
had  received  from  it.  These  are  the  intellectual  quali- 
ties which  make  up  the  physician,  without  any  one  of 
which  he  would  be  tnancus,  and  would  not  deserve  the 
name  of  a  complete  artsman,  any  more  than  proteine 
would  be  itself  if  any  one  of  its  four  elements  were 
ainissing. 

We  have  left  ourselves  no  room  to  speak  of  the  books 
we  have  named  at  the  end  of  this  paper.  We  recom- 
mend them  all  to  our  young  readers.  Arnauld's  excel- 
lent and  entertaining  Art  of  Thinking  —  the  once  famous 
Port-Royal  Logic  —  is,  if  only  one  be  taken,  probably 
the  best.      Thomson's    little   book   is  admirable,  and  is 


WITH   BRAINS,  SIR.  53 

specially  suited  for  a  medical  student,  as  its  illustrations 
are  drawn  with  great  intelligence  and  exactness  from 
chemistry  and  physiology.  We  know  nothing  more  per- 
fect than  the  analysis,  at  page  348,  of  Sir  H.  Davy's 
beautiful  experiments  to  account  for  .the  traces  of  an 
alkali,  found  when  decomposing  water  by  galvanism.  It 
is  quite  exquisite,  the  hunt  after  and  the  unearthing  of 
"  the  residual  cause."  This  book  has  the  great  advan- 
tage of  a  clear,  lively,  and  strong  style.  We  can  only 
give  some  short  extracts. 

INDUCTION    AND    DEDUCTION. 

"  We  may  define  the  inductive  method  as  the  process 
of  discovering  laws  and  rules  from  facts,  and  causes  from 
effects ;  and  the  deductive,  as  the  method  of  deriving 
facts  from  laws,  and  effects  from  their  causes." 

There  is  a  valuable  paragraph  on  anticipation  and  its 
uses  —  there  is  a  power  and  desire  of  the  mind  to  pro- 
ject itself  from  the  known  into  the  unknown,  in  the  ex- 
pectation of  finding  what  it  is  in  search  of. 

"  This  power  of  divination,  this  sagacity,  which  is  the 
mother  of  all  science,  we  may  call  anticipation.  The 
intellect,  with  a  dog-like  instinct,  will  not  hunt  until  it 
has  found  the  scent.  It  must  have  some  presage  of  the 
result  before  it  will  turn  its  energies  to  its  attainment. 
The  system  of  anatomy  which  has  immortalized  the 
name  of  Oken,  is  the  consequence  of  a  flash  of  antici- 
pation, which  glanced  through  his  mind  when  he  picked 
up,  in  a  chance  walk,  the  skull  of  a  deer,  bleached  by 
the  weather,  and  exclaimed  — '  It  is  a  vertebral  col- 
umn ! ' " 

"  The  man  of  science  possesses  principles  —  the  man 
of  art,  not  the  less  nobly  gifted,  is  possessed  and  carried 


54  WITH  BRAINS,  SIR. 

away  by  them.  The  principles  which  art  involves,  sci- 
ence evolves.  The  truths  on  which  the  success  of  art 
depends  lurk  in  the  artist's  mind  in  an  undeveloped  state, 
guiding  his  hand,  stimulating  his  invention,  balancing  his 
judgment,  but  npt  appearing  in  regular  propositions." 
"An  art  (that  of  medicine  for  instance)  will  of  course 
admit  into  its  limits,  everything  (and  nothing  else)  which 
can  conduce  to  the  performance  of  its  own  proper  work  ; 
it  recognizes  no  other  principles  of  selection." 

"  He  who  reads  a  book  on  logic,  probably  thinks  no 
better  when  he  rises  up  than  when  he  sat  down,  but  if 
any  of  the  principles  there  unfolded  cleave  to  his  mem- 
ory, and  he  afterwards,  perhaps  unconsciously,  shapes 
and  corrects  his  thoughts  by  them,  no  doubt  the  whole 
powers  of  his  reasoning  receive  benefit.  In  a  word, 
every  art,  from  reasoning  to  riding  and  rowing,  is  learned 
by  assiduous  practice,  and  if  principles  do  any  good,  it  is 
proportioned  to  the  readiness  with  which  they  can  be  con- 
verted into  rules,  and  the  patient  constancy  with  which 
they  are  applied  in  all  our  attempts  at  excellence." 

"  A  man  can  teach  names  to  another  man,  but  he  can- 
not plant  in  another's  mind  that  far  higher  gift  —  the 
power  of  naming." 

"  Language  is  not  only  the  vehicle  of  thought,  it  is  a 
great  and  efficient  instrument  in  thinking." 

"  The  whole  of  every  science  may  be  made  the  subject 
of  teaching.  Not  so  with  art ;  much  of  it  is  not  teach- 
able." 

Coleridge's  profound  and  brilliant,  but  unequal,  and 
often  somewhat  nebulous  Essay  on  Method,  is  worth 
reading  over,  were  it  only  as  an  exercitation,  and  to 
impress  on  the  mind  the  meaning  and  value  of  method 
Method  is  the  road   by  which  you  reach,  or  hope  to 


WITH  BRAINS,   SIR.  55 

reach,  a  certain  end ;  it  is  a  process.  It  is  the  best 
direction  for  the  search  after  truth.  System,  again, 
which  is  often  confounded  with  it,  is  a  mapping  out,  a 
circumscription  of  knowledge,  either  already  gained,  or 
theoretically  laid  down  as  probable.  Aristotle  had  a 
6ystem  which  did  much  good,  but  also  much  mischief. 
Bax>n  was  chiefly  occupied  in  preparing  and  pointing 
out  the  way  —  the  only  way  —  of  procuring  knowledge. 
He  left  to  others  to  systematize  the  knowledge  after  it 
was  got ;  but  the  pride  and  indolence  of  the  human 
spirit  lead  it  constantly  to  build  systems  on  imperfect 
knowledge.  It  has  the  trick  of  filling  up  out  of  its  own 
fancy  what  it  has  not  the  diligence,  the  humility,  and 
the  honesty,  to  seek  in  nature ;  whose  servant,  and  ar- 
ticulate voice,  it  ought  to  be. 

Descartes'  little  tract  on  Method  is,  like  everything 
the  lively  and  deep-souled  Breton  did,  full  of  original 
and  bright  thought. 

Sir  John  Herschel's  volume  needs  no  praise.  "We 
know  no  work  of  the  sort,  fuller  of  the  best  moral  worth, 
as  well  as  the  highest  philosophy.  We  fear  it  is  more 
talked  of  than  read 

We  would  recommend  tne  article  in  the  Quarterly 
Review  as  first-rate,  and  written  with  great  eloquence 
and  grace. 

Sydney  Smith's  Sketches  of  Lectures  on  Moral  Phi- 
losophy.    Second  Edition. 

Sedgwick's  Discourse  on  the  Studies  at  Cambridge, 
with  a  Preface  and  Appendix.     Sixth  Edition. 

We  have  put  these  two  worthies  here,  not  because 
we  had  forgotten  them,  —  much  less  because  we  think 


56  WITH  BRAINS,  SIR. 

less  of  them  than  the  others,  especially  Sydney.  But 
because  we  bring  them  in  at  the  end  of  our  small  en- 
tertainment, as  we  hand  round  a  liqueur  —  be  it  Cura- 
50a,  Kimmel,  or  old  Glenlivet  —  after  dinner,  and  end 
with  the  heterogeneous  plum-pudding  —  that  most  Eng- 
lish of  realized  ideas.  Sydney  Smith's  book  is  one  of 
rare  excellence,  and  well  worthy  of  the  study  of  men  and 
women,  though  perhaps  not  transcendental  enough  for 
our  modern  philosophers,  male  and  female.  It  is  really 
astonishing  how  much  of  the  best  of  everything,  from 
patriotism  to  nonsense,  is  to  be  found  in  this  volume  of 
sketches.  You  may  read  it  through,  if  your  sides  can 
bear  such  an  accumulation  of  laughter,  with  great  bene- 
fit ;  and  if  you  open  it  anywhere,  you  can't  read  three 
sentences  without  coming  across  some,  it  may  be  com- 
mon thought,  and  often  original  enough,  better  expressed 
and  put  than  you  ever  before  saw  it.  The  lectures  on 
the  Affections,  the  Passions  and  Desires,  and  on  Study, 
we  would  have-  everybody  to  read  and  enjoy. 

Sedgwick  is  a  different,  and,  as  a  whole,  an  inferior 
man  ;  but  a  man  every  inch  of  him,  and  an  Englishman 
too,  in  his  thoughts,  and  in  his  fine  mother  wit  and 
tongue.  He  has,  in  the  midst  of  all  his  confusion  and 
passionateness,  the  true  instinct  of  philosophy  —  the 
true  venatic  sense  of  objective  truth.  We  know  noth- 
ing better  in  the  main,  than  his  demolition  of  what  is 
untrue,  and  his  reduction  of  what  is  absurd,  and  his 
taking  the  wind  out  of  what  is  tympanitic,  in  the  noto- 
rious Vestiges  ;  we  don't  say  he  always  does  justice  to 
what  is  really  good  in  it ;  his  mission  is  to  execute  jus- 
tice upon  it,  and  that  he  does.  His  remarks  on  Oken 
and  Owen,  and  his  quotations  from  Dr.  Clarke's  admir- 
able paper  on  the  Development  of  the  Foetus,  in  the  (7am- 


WITH  BRAINS,   SIR.  57 

bridge  Philosophical  Transactions,  we  would  recommend 
to  our  medical  friends.  The  very  confusion  of  Sedgwick 
is  the  free  outcome  of  a  deep  and  racy  nature ;  it  puts 
us  in  mind  of  what  happened,  when  an  Englishman  was 
looking  with  astonishment  and  disgust  at  a  Scotchman 
eating  a  singed  sheep's  head,  and  was  asked  by  the  eater 
what  he  thought  of  that  dish  ?  "  Dish,  sir,  do  you  call 
that  a  dish  ?  "  "  Dish  or  no  dish,"  rejoined  the  Cale- 
donian, "  there's  a  deal  o'  fine  confused  feedin'  aboot  it, 
let  me  tell  you." 

We  conclude  these  rambling  remarks  with  a  quota- 
tion from  Arnauld,  the  friend  of  Pascal,  and  the  intrepid 
antagonist  of  the  Vatican  and  the  Grand  Monarque ; 
one  of  the  noblest,  freest,  most  untiring  and  honest  intel- 
lects, our  world  has  ever  seen.  "  Why  don't  you  rest 
sometimes  ? "  said  his  friend  Nicole  to  him.  "  Rest ! 
why  should  I  rest  here  ?  haven't  I  an  eternity  to  rest 
in  ? "  The  following  sentence  from  his  "  Port-Royal 
Logic,"  so  well  introduced  and  translated  by  Mr.  Baynes, 
contains  the  gist  of  all  we  have  been  trying  to  say.  It 
should  be  engraven  on  the  tablets  of  every  young  stu- 
dent's heart  —  for  the  heart  has  to  do  with  study  as  well 
as  the  head. 

"  There  is  nothing  more  desirable  than  good  sense  and 
justness  of  mind,  —  all  other  qualities  of  mind  are  of 
limited  use,  but  exactness  of  judgment  is  of  general 
utility  in  every  part  and  in  all  employments  of  life. 

"  We  are  too  apt  to  employ  reason  merely  as  an  instru- 
ment for  acquiring  the  sciences,  whereas  we  ought  to  avail 
ourselves  of  the  sciences,  as  an  instrument  for  perfecting 
our  reason  ;  justness  of  mind  being  infinitely  more  im- 
portant than  all  the  speculative  knowledge  which  we 
•jan  obtain  by  means  of  sciences  the  most  solid.     This 


58  WITH  BRAINS,  SIR. 

ought  to  lead  wise  men  to  make  their  sciences  the  ex- 
ercise and  not  the  occupation  of  their  mental  powers. 
Men  are  not  born  to  employ  all  their  time  in  measur- 
ing lines,  in  considering  the  various  movements  of  mat- 
ter :  their  minds  are  too  great,  and  their  life  too  short, 
their  time  too  precious,  to  be  so  engrossed ;  but  they  are 
born  to  be  just,  equitable,  and  prudent,  in  all  their 
thoughts,  their  actions,  their  business ;  to  these  things 
they  ought  especially  to  train  and  discipline  themselves." 

So,  young  friends,  bring  Brains  to  your  work, 
and  mix  everything  with  them,  and  them  with  every- 
thing. Arma  virumque,  tools  and  a  man  to  use  them. 
Stir  up,  direct,  and  give  free  scope  to  Sir  Joshua's 
"  that,"  and  try  again,  and  again  ;  and  look,  oculo  in- 
tento,  acie  acerrimd.  Looking  is  a  voluntary  act,  —  it 
is  the  man  within  coming  to  the  window ;  seeing  is  a 
state,  —  passive  and  receptive,  and,  at  the  best,  little 
more  than  registrative. 

Since  writing  the  above,  we  have  read  with  great 
satisfaction  Dr.  Forbes'  Lecture  delivered  before  the 
Chichester  Literary  Society  and  Mechanics'  Institute, 
and  published  at  their  request.  Its  subject  is,  Happi- 
ness in  its  relation  to  Work  and  Knowledge.  It  is 
worthy  of  its  author,  and  is,  we  think,  more  largely 
and  finely  imbued  with  his  personal  character,  than  any 
one  other  of  his  works  that  we  have  met  with.  We 
could  not  wish  a  fitter  present  for  a  young  man 
starting  on  the  game  of  life.  It  is  a  wise,  cheerful 
manly,  and  warm-hearted  discourse  on  the  words  of 
Bacon,  —  "  He  that  is  wise,  let  him  pursue  some  desire 
or  other :  for  he  that  doth  not  affect  some  one  thing  in 
chief,  unto  him  all  things  are  distasteful  and  tedious." 
We  will  not  spoil  this  little  volume  by  giving  any  ac- 


WITH  BRAINS,  SIR.  59 

count  of  it.  Let  our  readers  get  it,  and  read  it.  The 
extracts  from  his  Thesis,  De  Mentis  Exercitatione  et 
Felicitate  exinde  derivandd,  are  very  curious  —  showing 
the  native  vigor  and  bent  of  his  mind,  and  indicating 
also,  at  once  the  identity  and  the  growth  of  his  thoughts 
during  the  lapse  of  thirty-three  years. 

We  give  the  last  paragraph,  the  sense  and  the  filial 
affection  of  which  are  alike  admirable.  Having  men- 
tioned to  his  hearers  that  they  saw  in  himself  a  living 
illustration  of  the  truth  of  his  position,  that  happiness  is 
a  necessary  result  of  knowledge  and  work,  he  thus  con- 
cludes :  — 

"  If  you  would  further  desire  to  know  to  what  besides 
I  am  chiefly  indebted  for  so  enviable  a  lot,  I  would  say : 
—  1st,  Because  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  come  into  the 
world  with  a  healthful  frame,  and  with  a  sanguine  tem- 
perament. 2d,  Because  I  had  no  patrimony,  and  was 
therefore  obliged  to  trust  to  my  own  exertions  for  a 
livelihood.  3d,  Because  I  was  born  in  a  land  where 
instruction  is  greatly  prized  and  readily  accessible. 
4th,  Because  I  was  brought  up  to  a  profession  which 
not  only  compelled  mental  exercise,  but  supplied  for  its 
use  materials  of  the  most  delightful  and  varied  kind. 
And  lastly  and  principally,  because  the  good  man  to 
whom  I  otve  my  existence,  had  the  foresight  to  know 
what  would  be  best  for  his  children.  He  had  the  wis- 
dom, and  the  courage,  and  the  exceeding  love,  to  bestow 
all  that  could  be  spared  of  his  worldly  means,  to  purchase 
for  his  sons,  that  which  is  beyond  price,  education  ; 
well  judging  that  the  means  so  expended,  if  hoarded  for 
future  use,  would  be,  if  not  valueless,  certainly  evanes- 
cent, while  the  precious  treasure  for  which  they  were 
exchanged,  a  cultivated  and  instructed  mind,  would  not 


60  WITH  BRAINS,  SIR. 

only  last  through  life,  but  might  be  the  fruitful  source 
of  treasures  far  more  precious  than  itself.  So  equipped 
he  sent  them  forth  into  the  world  to  fight  Life's  battle, 
leaving  the  issue  in  the  hand  of  God  ;  confident,  how- 
ever, that  though  they  might  fail  to  achieve  renown  or 
to  conquer  Fortune,  they  possessed  that  which,  if  rightly 
used,  could  win  for  them  the  yet  higher  prize  of  hap- 
piness. 

Since  this  was  written,  many  good  books  have  ap- 
peared, but  we  would  select  three,  which  all  young  men 
should  read  and  get  —  Hartley  Coleridge's  Lives  of 
Northern  Worthies,  Thackeray's  Letters  of  Brown  the 
Elder,  and  Tom  Brown's  School-days  —  in  spirit  and 
in  expression,  we  don't  know  any  better  models  for 
manly  courage,  good  sense,  and  feeling,  and  they  are  as 
well  written  as  they  are  thought. 

There  are  the  works  of  another  man,  one  of  the  great- 
est, not  only  of^our,  but  of  any  time,  to  which  we  can- 
not too  earnestly  draw  our  young  readers.  We  mean 
the  philosophical  writings  of  Sir  William  Hamilton. 
We  know  no  more  invigorating,  quickening,  rectifying 
kind  of  exercise,  than  reading  with  a  will,  anything  he 
has  written  upon  permanently  important  subjects.  There 
is  a  greatness  and  simplicity,  a  closeness  of  thought,  a 
glance  keen  and  wide,  a  play  of  the  entire  nature,  and 
a  truthfulness  and  downrightness,  with  an  amount,  and 
accuracy,  and  vivifioation  of  learning,  such  as  we  know 
of  in  no  one  other  writer,  ancient  or  modern  —  not  even 
Leibnitz  ;  and  we  know  no  writings  which  so  whole- 
somely at  once  exalt  and  humble  the  reader,  make  him 
feel  what  is  in  him,  and  what  he  can  and  may,  as  well 
as  what  he  cannot,  and  need  never  hope  to  know.     In 


WITH  BRAINS,  SIR.  61 

this  respect,  Hamilton  is  as  grand  as  Pascal,  and  more 
simple ;  he  exemplifies  everywhere  his  own  sublime 
adaptation  of  Scripture  —  unless  a  man  become  a  little 
child,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  ;  he  enters  the 
temple  stooping,  but  he  presses  on,  intrepid  and  alone, 
to  the  inmost  adytum,  worshipping  the  more  the  nearer 
he  gets  to  the  inaccessible  shrine,  whose  veil  no  mortal 
hand  has  ever  rent  in  twain.  And  we  name  after  him, 
the  thoughtful,  candid,  impressive  little  volume  of  his 
pupil,  his  friend,  and  his  successor,  Professor  Fraser. 

The  following  passage  from  Sir  William  Hamilton's 
Dissertations,  besides  its  wise  thought,  sounds  in  the 
ear  like  the  pathetic  and  majestic  sadness  of  a  sym- 
phony by  Beethoven  :  — 

"  There  are  two  sorts  of  ignorance  :  we  philosophize 
to  escape  ignorance,  and  the  consummation  of  our  phi- 
losophy is  ignorance  ;  we  start  from  the  one,  we  repose 
in  the  other ;  they  are  the  goals  from  which,  and  to 
which,  we  tend  ;  and  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  is  but  a 
course  between  two  ignorances,  as  human  life  is  itself 
only  a  travelling  from  grave  to  grave. 

TtS  /3tOS  ;  E«  TV/x/SoiO  OopiiV,  C7TI  TVjxfiov  oSeixo. 

The  highest  reach  of  human  science  is  the  scientific 
recognition  of  human  ignorance ;  '  Qui  nescit  ignorare, 
ignorat  scire.'  This  '  learned  ignorance '  is  the  rational 
conviction  by  the  human  mind  of  its  inability  to  tran- 
scend certain  limits  ;  it  is  the  knowledge  of  ourselves,  — 
the  science  of  man.  This  is  accomplished  by  a  demon- 
stration of  the  disproportion  between  what  is  to  be 
known,  and  our  faculties  of  knowing,  —  the  dispropor- 
tion, to  wit,  between  the  infinite  and  the  finite.  In  fact, 
the  recognition  of  human  ignorance,  is  not  only  the  one 


62  WITH  BRAINS,  SIR. 

highest,  but  the  one  true,  knowledge  ;  and  its  first-fruit, 
as  has  been  said,  is  humility.  Simple  nescience  is  not 
proud  ;  consummated  science  is  positively  humble.  For 
this  knowledge  it  is  not,  which  '  pufFeth  up ; '  but  its 
opposite,  the  conceit  of  false  knowledge,  —  the  conceit, 
in  truth,  as  the  apostle  notices,  of  an  ignorance  of  the 
very  nature  of  knowledge  :  — 

'Nam  nesciens  quid  scire  sit, 
Te  scire  cuncta  jactitas.' 

"  But  as  our  knowledge  stands  to  Ignorance,  so  stands 
it  also  to  Doubt.  Doubt  is  the  beginning  and  the  end 
of  our  efforts  to  know  ;  for  as  it  is  true,  — '  Alte  dubitat 
qui  altius  credit,'  so  it  is  likewise  true,  — '  Quo  magis 
quaerimus  magis  dubitamus.' 

"  The  grand  result  of  human  wisdom  is  thus  only  a 
consciousness  that  what  we  know  is  as  nothing  to  what 
we  know  not,  ('  Quantum  est  quod  nescimus ! ')  —  an 
articulate  confession,  in  fact,  by  our  natural  reason,  of 
the  truth  declared  in  revelation,  that  '  now  we  see 
through  a  glass,  darkly.' " 

His  pupil  writes  in  the  same  spirit  and  to  the  same 
end  :  —  "A  discovery,  by  means  of  reflection  and  mental 
experiment,  of  the  limits  of  knowledge,  is  the  highest 
and  most  universally  applicable  discovery  of  all ;  it  is 
the  one  through  which  our  intellectual  life  most  strik- 
ingly blends  with  the  moral  and  practical  part  of  human 
nature.  Progress  in  knowledge  is  often  paradoxically 
indicated  by  a  diminution  in  the  apparent  bulk  of  what 
we  know.  Whatever  helps  to  work  off  the  dregs  of 
false  opinion,  and  to  purify  the  intellectual  mass  —  what- 
ever deepens  our  conviction  of  our  infinite  ignorance  — 
really  adds  to,  although  it  sometimes  seems  to  diminish, 


WITH  BRAINS,   SIR.  63 

the  rational  possessions  of  man.  This  is  the  highest 
kind  of  merit  that  is  claimed  for  Philosophy,  by  its 
earliest  as  well  as  by  its  latest  representatives.  It  is 
by  this  standard  that  Socrates  and  Kant  measure  the 
chief  results  of  their  toil." 


BOOKS  REFERRED  TO. 

1.  Arnauld's  Port-Royal  Logic;  translated  by  T.  S.  Baynes. — 
2.  Thomson's  Outlines  of  the  Necessary  Laws  of  Thought.  —  3.  Des- 
cartes on  the  Method  of  Rightly  Conducting  the  Reason,  and  Seeking 
Truth  in  the  Sciences.  — 4.  Coleridge's  Essay  on  Method.  — 5.  Whate- 
ly's  Logic  and  Rhetoric;  new  and  cheap  edition.  —  6.  Mill's  Logic; 
new  and  cheap  edition.  —  7.  Dugald  Stewart's  Outlines.  —  8.  Sir 
John  Herschel's  Preliminary  Dissertation.  —  9.  Quarterly  Review, 
vol.  lxviii;  Article  upon  Whewell's  Philosophy  of  Inductive  Sciences. 
—  10.  Isaac  Taylor's  Elements  of  Thought  — 11.  Sir  William  Hamil- 
ton's edition  of  Reid;  Dissertations;  and  Lectures.  — 12.  Professor 
Fraser's  Rational  Philosophy.  — 13.  Locke  on  the  Conduct  of  the 
Understanding. 


THE  MISTER T  OF  BLACK  AND    TAN. 


The  reader  must  remember  that  my  work  is  concerning  the  aspects  of 
things  only."  —  Ruskin. 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  BLACK  AND   TAN. 


|E, —  the  Sine  Qua  Non,  the  Duchess,  the 
Sputchard,  the  Dutchard,  the  Ricapicticapic, 
Oz  and  Oz,  the  Maid  of  Lorn,  and  myself, 
—  left  Crieff  some  fifteen  years  ago,  on  a 
bright  September  morning,  soon  after  daybreak,  in  a  gig. 
It  was  a  morning  still  and  keen  :  the  sun  sending1  his 
level  shafts  across  Strathearn,  and  through  the  thin  mist 
over  its  river  hollows,  to  the  fierce  Aberuchil  Hills,  and 
searching  out  the  dark  blue  shadows  in  the  corries  of 
Benvorlich.  But  who  and  how  many  are  "we?"  To 
make  you  as  easy  as  we  all  were,  let  me  tell  you  we 
were  four ;  and  are  not  these  dumb  friends  of  ours  per- 
sons rather  than  things?  is  not  their  soul  ampler,  as 
Plato  would  say,  than  their  body,  and  contains  rather 
than  is  contained  ?  Is  not  what  lives  and  wills  in  them, 
and  is  affectionate,  as  spiritual,  as  immaterial,  as  truly  re- 
moved from  mere  flesh,  blood,  and  bones,  as  that  soul 
which  is  the  proper  self  of  their  master?  And  when 
we  look  each  other  in  the  face,  as  I  now  look  in  Dick's, 
who  is  lying  in  his  "  corny  "  by  the  fireside,  and  he  in 
mine,  is  it  not  as  much  the  dog  within  looking  from  out 
his  eyes  —  the  windows  of  his  soul  —  as  it  is  the  man 
from  his? 

The  Sine   Qua  Non,  who  will  not  be  pleased  at  be 


68      THE  MYSTERY  OF  BLACK  AND  TAN. 

ing  spoken  of,  is  such  an  one  as  that  vain-glorious  and 
chivalrous  Ulric  von  Hiitten  —  the  Reformation's  man 
of  wit,  and  of  the  world,  and  of  the  sword,  who  slew 
Monkery  with  the  wild  laughter  of  his  Epistoloe  Obscu- 
rorum  Virorum  —  had  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  thus 
to  his  friend  Fredericus  Piscator  (Mr.  Fred.  Fisher), 
on  the  19th  May  1519,  "Da  mihi  uxorem,  Friderice,  et 
ut  scias  qualem,  venustam,  adolescentulam,  probe  educa- 
tam,  hilarem,  verecundam,  patientem."  "  Qualem"  he 
lets  Frederic  understand  in  the  sentence  preceding,  is 
one  "  qua  cum  ludam,  qua  jocos  conferam,  amozniores 
et  leviuscidas  fabulas  misceam,  ubi  sollicitudinis  aciem 
obtundam,  curarum  cestus  mitigem"  And  if  you  would 
know  more  of  the  Sine  Qua  Non,  and  in  English,  for 
the  world  is  dead  to  Latin  now,  you  will  find  her  name 
and  nature  in  Shakspeare's  words,  when  King  Henry 
the  Eighth  says,  "  go  thy  ways." 

Tlie  Duchess,  alias  all  the  other  names  till  you  come 
to  the  Maid  of  Lorn,  is  a  rough,  gnarled,  incomparable 
little  bit  of  a  terrier,  three  parts  Dandie-Dinmont,  and 
one  part  —  chiefly  in  tail  and  hair  —  cocker  :  her  father 
being  Lord  Rutherfurd's  famous  "  Dandie,"  and  her 
mother  the  daughter  of  a  Skye,  and  a  light-hearted 
Cocker.  The  Duchess  is  about  the  size  and  weight  of 
a  rabbit ;  but  has  a  soul  as  big,  as  fierce,  and  as  faithful 
as  had  Meg  Merrilies,  with  a  nose  as  black  as  Topsy's ; 
and  is  herself  every  bit  as  game  and  queer  as  that  de- 
licious imp  of  darkness  and  of  Mrs.  Stowe.  Her  legs 
set  her  long  slim  body  about  two  inches  and  a  half  from 
the  ground,  making  her  very  like  a  huge  caterpillar  or 
hairy  oobit  —  her  two  eyes,  dark  and  full,  and  her  shin- 
ing nose,  being  all  of  her  that  seems  anything  but  hair. 
Her  tail  was  a  sort  of  stump,  in  size  and  in  look  very 


THE  MYSTERY   OF  BLACK  AND  TAN.  69 

much  like  a  spare  foreleg,  stuck  in  anywhere  to  be  near. 
Her  color  was  black  above  and  a  rich  brown  below,  with 
two  dots  of  tan  above  the  eyes,  which  dots  are  among 
the  deepest  of  the  mysteries  of  Black  and  Tan. 

This  strange  little  being  I  had  known  for  some  years, 
but  had  only  possessed  about  a  month.  She  and  her 
pup  (a  young  lady  called  Smoot,  which  means  smolt,  a 
young  salmon),  were  given  me  by  the  widow  of  an  hon- 
est and  drunken  —  as  much  of  the  one  as  of  the  other  — 
Edinburgh  street-porter,  a  native  of  Badenoch,  as  a 
legacy  from  him  and  a  fee  from  her  for  my  attendance 
on  the  poor  man's  death-bed.  But  my  first  sight  of  the 
Duchess  was  years  before  in  Broughton  Street,  when  I 
saw  her  sitting  bolt  upright,  begging,  imploring,  with 
those  little  rough  four  leggies,  and  those  yearning,  beau- 
tiful eyes,  all  the  world,  or  any  one,  to  help  her  master, 
who  was  lying  "  mortal "  in  the  kennel.  I  raised  him, 
and  with  the  help  of  a  ragged  Samaritan,  who  was  only 
less  drunk  than  he,  I  got  Macpherson — he  held  from 
Glen  Truim  —  home  ;  the  excited  doggie  trotting  off, 
and  looking  back  eagerly  to  show  us  the  way.  I  never 
again  passed  the  Porters'  Stand  without  speaking  to 
her.  After  Malcolm's  burial  I  took  possession  of  her ; 
she  escaped  to  the  wretched  house,  but  as  her  mistress 
was  off  to  Kingussie,  and  the  door  shut,  she  gave  a  pit- 
iful howl  or  two,  and  was  forthwith  back  at  my  door, 
with  an  impatient,  querulous  bark.  And  so  this  is  our 
6econd  of  the  four ;  and  is  she  not  deserving  of  as  many 
names  as  any  other  Duchess,  from  her  of  Medina  Si- 
donia  downwards  ? 

A  fierier  little  soul  never  dwelt  in  a  queerer  or 
stancher  body ;  see  her  huddled  up,  and  you  would  think 
her  a  bundle  of  hair,  or  a  bit  of  old  mossy  wood,  or  a 


70  THE  MYSTERY  OF  BLACK  AND  TANT. 

slice  of  heathery  turf,  with  some   red   soil  underneath 
but  speak  to  her,  or  give  her  a  cat  to  deal  with,  be  it 
bigger  than  herself,  and  what  an  incarnation  of  affection, 
energy,  and  fury  —  what  a  fell  unquenchable  little  ruf- 
fian. 

The  Maid  of  Lorn  was  a  chestnut  mare,  a  broken 
down  racer,  thorough-bred  as  Beeswing,  but  less  for 
tunate  in  her  life,  and  I  fear  not  so  happy  occasione  mor~ 
tis :  unlike  the  Duchess,  her  body  was  greater  and  finer 
than  her  soul ;  still  she  was  a  ladylike  creature,  sleek, 
slim,  nervous,  meek,  willing,  and  fleet.  She  had  been 
thrown  down  by  some  brutal  half-drunk  Forfarshire  laird, 
when  he  put  her  wildly  and  with  her  wind  gone,  at  the 
last  hurdle  on  the  North  Inch  at  the  Perth  races.  She 
was  done  for  and  bought  for  ten  pounds  by  the  landlord 
of  the  Drummond  Arms,  Crieff,  who  had  been  taking  as 
much  money  out  of  her,  and  putting  as  little  corn  into 
her  as  was  compatible  with  life,  purposing  to  run  her 
for  the  Consolafion  Stakes  at  Stirling.  Poor  young 
lady,  she  was  a  sad  sight — broken  in  back,  in  knees,  in 
character,  and  wind  —  in  everything  but  temper,  which 
was  as  sweet  and  all-enduring  as  Penelope's  or  our  own 
Enid's. 

Of  myself,  the  fourth,  I  decline  making  any  account. 
Be  it  sufficient  that  I  am  the  Dutchard's  master,  and 
drove  the  gig. 

It  was,  as  I  said,  a  keen  and  bright  morning,  anl 
the  S.  Q.  N.  feeling  chilly,  and  the  Duchess  being  away 
after  a  cat  up  a  back  entry,  doing  a  chance  stroke  of 
business,  and  the  mare  looking  only  half  breakfasted,  I 
made  them  give  her  a  full  feed  of  meal  and  water, 
and  stood  by  and  enjoyed  her  enjoyment.  It  seemed 
too  good  to  be  true,  and  she  looked  up  every  now  and 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  BLACK  AND  TAN.      71 

then  in  the  midst  of  her  feast,  with  a  mild  wonder 
Away  she  and  I  bowled  down  the  sleeping  village,  all 
overrun  with  sunshine,  the  dumb  idiot  man  and  the 
birds  alone  up,  for  the  ostler  was  off  to  his  straw.  There 
was  the  S.  Q.  N.  and  her  small  panting  friend,  who  had 
lost  the  cat,  but  had  got  what  philosophers  say  is  bet* 
ter  —  the  chase.  "  Nous  ne  cherchons  jamais  les  choses, 
mats  la  recherche  des  choses"  says  Pascal.  The  Duch- 
ess would  substitute  for  les  choses  —  les  chats.  Pursuit, 
not  possession,  was  her  passion.  "We  all  got  in,  and  off 
set  the  Maid,  who  was  in  excellent  heart,  quite  gay, 
pricking  her  ears  and  casting  up  her  head,  and  rattling 
away  at  a  great  pace. 

We  baited  at  St.  Fillans,  and  again  cheered  the  heart 
of  the  Maid  with  unaccustomed  corn  —  the  S.  Q.  N., 
Duchie,  and  myself,  going  up  to  the  beautiful  rising 
ground  at  the  back  of  the  inn,  and  lying  on  the  fragrant 
heather  looking  at  the  Loch,  with  its  mild  gleams  and 
shadows,  and  its  second  heaven  looking  out  from  its 
depths,  the  wild,  rough  mountains  of  Glenartney  tower- 
ing opposite.  Duchie,  I  believe,  was  engaged  in  minor 
business  close  at  hand,  and  caught  and  ate  several  large 
flies  and  a  humble-bee  ;  she  was  very  fond  of  this  small 
game. 

There  is  not  in  all  Scotland,  or  as  far  as  I  have  seen 
in  all  else,  a  more  exquisite  twelve  miles  of  scenery 
than  that  between  Crieff  and  the  head  of  Lochearn. 
Ochtertyre,  and  its  woods  ;  Benchonzie,  the  head-quar- 
ters of  the  earthquakes,  only  lower  than  Benvorlich ; 
Strowan ;  Lawers,  with  its  grand  old  Scotch  pines ; 
Comrie,  with  the  wild  Lednoch ;  Dunira ;  and  St.  Fil- 
lans, where  we  are  now  lying,  and  where  the  poor  thor- 
oughbred is  tucking  in  her  corn.      "We  start  after  two 


72      THE  MFSTERY  OF  BLACK  AND  TAN. 

hours  of  dreaming  in  the  half  sunlight,  and  rumble  ever 
and  anon  over  an  earthquake,  as  the  common  folk  call 
these  same  hollow,  resounding  rifts  in  the  rock  beneath, 
and  arriving  at  the  old  inn  at  Lochearnhead,  have  a 
tousle  tea.  In  the  evening,  when  the  day  was  darkening 
into  night,  Duchie  and  I,  —  the  S.  Q.  N.  remaining  to 
read  and  rest,  —  walked  up  Glen  Ogle.  It  was  then 
in  its  primeval  state,  the  new  road  non-existent,  and  the 
old  one  staggering  up  and  down  and  across  that  most 
original  and  Cyclopean  valley,  deep,  threatening,  sav- 
age, and  yet  beautiful  — 

"  Where  rocks  were  rudely  heaped,  and  rent 
As  by  a  spirit  turbulent; 

Where  sights  were  rough,  and  sounds  were  wild, 
And  everything  unreconciled;" 

with  flocks  of  mighty  boulders,  straying  all  over  it. 
Some  far  up,  and  frightful  to  look  at,  others  huddled 
down  in  the  river,  immane  pecus,  and  one  huge  un- 
loosened fellow^  as  big  as  a  manse,  up  aloft  watching 
them,  like  old  Proteus  with  his  calves,  as  if  they  had 
fled  from  the  sea  by  stress  of  weather,  and  had  been 
led  by  their  ancient  herd  altos  visere  monies  —  a  wilder, 
more  "  unreconciled "  place  I  know  not ;  and  now  that 
the  darkness  was  being  poured  into  it,  those  big  fellows 
looked  bigger,  and   hardly  "  canny." 

Just  as  we  were  turning  to  come  home  - —  Duchie 
unwillingly,  as  she  had  much  multifarious,  and  as  usual 
fruitless  hunting  to  do  —  she  and  I  were  startled  by 
seeing  a  dog  in  the  side  of  the  hill,  where  the  soil  had 
been  broken.  She  barked  and  I  stared ;  she  trotted 
consequentially  up  and  snuffed  more  eanino,  and  I  went 
nearer :  it  never  moved,  and  on  coming  quite  close  I 
saw  as  it  were  the  image  of  a  terrier,  a  something  that 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  BLACK  AND  TAN.      73 

made  me  think  of  an  idea  wnrealized  ;  the  rough,  short, 
scrubby  heather  and  dead  grass,  made  a  color  and  a 
coat  just  like  those  of  a  good  Highland  terrier  —  a 
sort  of  pepper  and  salt  this  one  was  —  and  below,  the 
broken  soil,  in  which  there  was  some  iron  and  clay, 
with  old  gnarled  roots,  for  all  the  world  like  its  odd, 
bandy,  and  sturdy  legs.  Duchie  seemed  not  so  easily 
unbeguiled  as  I  was,  and  kept  staring,  and  snuffing,  and 
growling,  but  did  not  touch  it,  —  seemed  afraid.  I  left 
and  looked  again,  and  certainly  it  was  very  odd  the 
growing  resemblance  to  one  of  the  indigenous,  hairy, 
low-legged  dogs,  one  sees  all  about  the  Highlands,  ter- 
riers, or  earthy  ones. 

We  came  home,  and  told  the  S.  Q.  N.  our  joke.  I 
dreamt  of  that  visionary  terrier,  that  son  of  the  soil, 
all  night ;  and  in  the  very  early  morning,  leaving  the 
S.  Q.  N.  asleep,  I  walked  up  with  the  Duchess  to  the 
same  spot.  What  a  morning !  it  was  before  sunrise,  at 
least  before  he  had  got  above  Benvorlich.  The  loch 
was  lying  in  a  faint  mist,  beautiful  exceedingly,  as  if 
half  veiled  and  asleep,  the  cataract  of  Edinample  roar- 
ing less  loudly  than  in  the  night,  and  the  old*  castle  of 
the  Lords  of  Lochow,  in  the  shadow  of  the  bins,  among 
its  trees,  might  be  seen 

"  Sole  sitting  by  the  shore  of  old  romance." 

There  was  still  gloom  in  Glen  Ogle,  though  the  beams 
of  the  morning  were  shooting  up  into  the  broad  fields 
of  the  sky.  I  was  looking  back  and  down,  when  I 
heard  the  Duchess  bark  sharply,  and  then  give  a  cry 
of  fear,  and  on  turning  round,  there  was  she  with  as 
much  as  she  had  of  tail  between  her  legs,  where  I  never 
saw  it  before,  and  her  small  Grace,  without  noticing  me 


74  THE  MYSTERY  OF  BLACK  AND  TAN. 

or  my  cries,  making  down  to  the  inn  and  her  mistress, 
a  hairy  hurricane.  I  walked  on  to  see  what  it  was,  and 
there  in  the  same  spot  as  last  night,  in  the  bank,  was  a 
real  dog  —  no  mistake  ;  it  was  not,  as  the  day  before,  a 
mere  surface  or  spectrum,  or  ghost  of  a  dog ;  it  wag 
plainly  round  and  substantial ;  it  was  much  developed 
since  eight  p.  M.  As  I  looked,  it  moved  slightly,  and 
as  it  were  by  a  sort  of  shiver,  as  if  an  electric  shock 
(and  why  not  ?)  was  being  administered  by  a  law  of  na- 
ture ;  it  had  then  no  tail,  or  rather  had  an  odd  amor- 
phous look  in  that  region  ;  its  eye,  for  it  had  one — it  was 
seen  in  profile  —  looked  to  my  profane  vision  like  (why 
not  actually  ?)  a  huge  blaeberry  (vaccinium  Myrtillus,  it 
is  well  to  be  scientific)  black  and  full ;  and  I  thought, — 
but  dare  not  be  sure,  and  had  no  time  or  courage  to  be 
minute, —  that  where  the  nose  should  be,  there  was  a 
small  shining  black  snail,  probably  the  Limax  niger  of 
M.  de  Ferussac,  curled  up,  and  if  you  look  at  any  dog's 
nose  you  will  be  struck  with  the  typical  resemblance,  in 
the  corrugations  and  moistness  and  jetty  blackness  of  the 
one  to  the  other,  and  of  the  other  to  the  one.  He  was 
a  strongly-built,  wiry,  bandy,  and  short-legged  dog.  As 
I  was  staring  upon  him,  a  beam  —  Oh,  first  creative 
beam !  —  sent  from  the  sun  — 

"  Like  as  an  arrow  from  a  bow, 
Shot  by  an  archer  strong  "  — 

as  he  looked  over  Benvorlich's  shoulder,  and  piercing  a 
cloudlet  of  mist  which  clung  close  to  him,  and  filling  it 
with  whitest  radiance,  struck  upon  that  eye  or  berry, 
and  lit  up  that  nose  or  snail :  in  an  instant  he  sneezed 
(the  nisus  (sneezus  ?)  formativus  of  the  ancients)  ;  that 
eye  quivered  and  was  quickened,  and  with  a  shudder  — 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  BLACK  AND  TAN.       75 

such  as  a  horse  executes  with  that  curious  muscle  of  the 
skin,  of  which  we  have  a  mere  fragment  in  our  neck,  the 
Platysma  Myoides,  and  which  doubtless  has  been  les- 
sened as  we  lost  our  distance  from  the  horse-type  — 
which  dislodged  some  dirt  and  stones  and  dead  heather, 
and  doubtless  endless  beetles,  and,  it  may  be,  made  some 
near  weasel  open  bis  other  eye,  up  went  his  tail,  and  out 
he  came,  lively,  entire,  consummate,  warm,  wagging  his 
tail,  I  was  going  to  say  like  a  Christian,  I  mean  like  an 
ordinary  dog.  Then  flashed  upon  me  the  solution  of  the 
Mystery  of  Black  and  Tan  in  all  its  varieties :  the  body, 
its  upper  part  gray  or  black  or  yellow  according  to  the 
upper  soil  and  herbs,  heather,  bent,  moss,  &c. ;  the  belly 
and  feet,  red  or  tan  or  light  fawn,  according  to  the  na» 
ture  of  the  deep  soil,  be  it  ochrey,  ferruginous,  light  clay, 
or  comminuted  mica  slate.  And  wonderfullest  of  all, 
the  Dots  of  Tan  above  the  eyes  —  and  who  has  not 
noticed  and  wondered  as  to  the  philosophy  of  them  ?  — 
1  saw  made  by  the  two  fore  feet,  wet  and  clayey,  being 
put  briskly  up  to  his  eyes  as  he  sneezed  that  genetic, 
vivifying  sneeze,  and  leaving  their  mark,  forever. 

He  took  to  me  quite  pleasantly,  by  virtue  of  "  natural 
selection,"  and  has  accompained  me  thus  far  in  our 
"  struggle  for  life,"  and  he,  and  the  S.  Q.  N.,  and  the 
Duchess,  and  the  Maid,  returned  that  day  to  Crieff,  and 
were  friends  all  our  days.  I  was  a  little  timid  when 
he  was  crossing  a  burn  lest  he  should  wash  away  his 
feet,  but  he  merely  colored  the  water,  and  every  day 
less  and  less,  till  in  a  fortnight  I  could  wash  him  with- 
out fear  of  his  becoming  a  solution,  or  fluid  extract  of 
dog,  and  thus  resolving  the  mystery  back  into  itself. 

The  mare's  days  were  short.  She  won  the  Consola- 
tion Stakes  at  Stirling,  and  was  found  dead  next  morn- 


76  TIIE  MYSTERY  OF  BLACK  AND  TAX. 

ing  in  Gibb's  stables.  The  Duchess  died  in  a  good  old 
age,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  history  of  "  Our  Dogs." 
The  S.  Q.  N.,  and  the  parthenogenesic  earth-born,  the 
Cespes  Vivus  —  whom  we  sometimes  called  Joshua,  be* 
cause  he  was  the  Son  of  None  (Nun),  and  even  Mel- 
chisedec  has  been  whispered,  but  only  that,  and  Fitz 
Memnon,  as  being  as  it  were  a  son  of  the  Sun,  some- 
times the  Autochthon  avro-^Oovos  ;  (indeed,  if  the  rela- 
tion of  the  coup  de  soleil  and  the  blaeberry  had  not  been 
plainly  causal  and  effectual,  I  might  have  called  him 
Filius  Gunni,  for  at  the  very  moment  of  that  shudder, 
by  which  he  leapt  out  of  non-life  into  life,  the  Mar- 
quis's gamekeeper  fired  his  rifle  up  the  hill,  and  brought 
down  a  stray  young  stag,)  these  two  are  happily  with 
me  still,  and  at  this  moment  she  is  out  on  the  grass  in 
a  low  easy-chair,  reading  Emilie  Carlen's  Brilliant  Mar- 
riage, and  Dick  is  lying  at  her  feet,  watching,  with 
cocked  ears,  some  noise  in  the  ripe  wheat,  possibly  a 
chicken,  for,  poor  fellow,  he  has  a  weakness  for  worry- 
ing hens,  and  such  small  deer,  when  there  is  a  dearth  of 
greater.  If  any,  as  is  not  unreasonable,  doubt  me  and 
my  story,  they  may  come  and  see  Dick.  I  assure  them 
he  is  well  worth  seeing. 


HER  LAST  HALF- OR  OWN. 


Once  I  had  friends  —  though  now  by  all  forsaken  ; 
Once  I  had  parents  —  they  are  now  in  heaven. 
I  had  a  home  once 

Worn  out  with  anguish,  sin,  and  cold,  and  hunger, 
Down  sunk  the  outcast,  death  had  seized  her  senses. 
There  did  the  stranger  find  her  in  the  morning  — 
God  had  released  her. 

Southby. 


HER    LAST  HALF-CROWN. 


UGH  MILLER,  the  geologist,  journalist, 
and  man  of  genius,  was  sitting  in  his  news- 
paper office  late  one  dreary  winter  night. 
p  v*  The  clerks  had  all  left  and  he  was  prepar- 
ing to  go,  when  a  quick  rap  came  to  the  door.  He  said 
"  Come  in,"  and,  looking  towards  the  entrance,  saw  a 
little  ragged  child  all  wet  with  sleet.  "  Are  ye  Hugh 
Miller?"  "Yes."  "Mary  Duff  wants  ye."  "What 
does  she  want  ?  "  "  She's  deein."  Some  misty  recollec- 
tion of  the  name  made  him  at  once  set  out,  and  with  his 
well-known  plaid  and  stick,  he  was  soon  striding  after 
the  child,  who  trotted  through  the  now  deserted  High 
Street,  into  the  Canongate.  By  the  time  he  got  to  the 
Old  Playhouse  Close,  Hugh  had  revived  his  memory 
of  Mary  Duff:  a  lively  girl  who  had  been  bred  up  be- 
side him  in  Cromarty.  The  last  time  he  had  seen  her 
was  at  a  brother  mason's  marriage,  where  Mary  was 
"best  maid,"  and  he  "best  man."  He  seemed  still  to 
6ee  her  bright  young  careless  face,  her  tidy  short  gown, 
and  her  dark  eyes,  and  to  hear  her  bantering,  merry 
tongue. 

Down  the  close  went  the  ragged  little  woman,  and  up 
an  outside  stair,  Hugh  keeping  near  her  with  difficulty ; 
in  the  passage  she  held  out  her  hand  and  touched  him ; 


80  HER  LAST  HALF-CROWN. 

taking  it  in  his  great  palm,  he  felt  that  she  wanted  a 
thumb.  Finding  her  way  like  a  cat  through  the  dark- 
ness, she  opened  a  door,  and  saying  "  That's  her ! "  van- 
ished. By  the  light  of  a  dying  fire  he  saw  lying  in  the 
corner  of  the  large  empty  room  something  like  a  wom- 
an's clothes,  and  on  drawing  nearer  became  aware  of  a 
thin  pale  face  and  two  dark  eyes  looking  keenly  but  help- 
lessly up  at  him.  The  eyes  were  plainly  Mary  Duffs, 
though  he  could  recognize  no  other  feature.  She  wept 
silently,  gazing  steadily  at  him.  "Are  you  Mary  Duff?" 
"  It's  a'  that's  o'  me,  Hugh."  She  then  tried  to  speak  to 
him,  something  plainly  of  great  urgency,  but  she  couldn't, 
and  seeing  that  she  was  very  ill,  and  was  making  herself 
worse,  he  put  half-a-crown  into  her  feverish  hand,  and 
said  he  would  call  again  in  the  morning.  He  could  get 
no  information  about  her  from  the  neighbors  ;  they  were 
surly  or  asleep. 

When  he  returned  next  morning,  the  little  girl  met 
him  at  the  stair-head,  and  said,  "  She's  deid."  He  went 
in,  and  found  that  it  was  true ;  there  she  lay,  the  fire  out, 
her  face  placid,  and  the  likeness  to  her  maiden  self  re- 
stored. Hugh  thought  he  would  have  known  her  now, 
even  with  those  bright  black  eyes  closed  as  they  were,  in 
ceternum. 

Seeking  out  a  neighbor,  he  said  he  would  like  to  bury 
Mary  Duff,  and  arranged  for  the  funeral  with  an  under- 
taker in  the  close.  Little  seemed  to  be  known  of  the 
poor  outcast,  except  that  she  was  a  "  licht,"  or,  as  Solo- 
mon would  have  said,  a  "  strange  woman."  "  Did  she 
drink  ?  "     "  Whiles." 

On  the  day  of  the  funeral  one  or  two  residents  in  the 
close  accompanied  him  to  the  Canongate  Churchyard. 
He  observed  a  decent  looking  little  old  woman  watching 


HEll  LAST   HALF-CROWN.  81 

them,  and  following  at  a  distance,  though  the  day  was 
wet  and  hitter.  After  the  grave  was  filled,  and  he  had 
taken  off  his  hat,  as  the  men  finished  their  business 
by  putting  on  and  slapping  the  sod,  he  saw  this  old 
woman  remaining.  She  came  up  and,  courtesying,  said, 
"  Ye  wad  ken  that  lass,  sir  ?  "  "  Yes  ;  I  knew  her 
when  she  was  young."  The  woman  then  burst  into 
tears,  and  told  Hugh  that  she  "  keepit  a  bit  shop  at  the 
Closemooth,  and  Mary  dealt  wi'  me,  and  aye  paid  reglar, 
and  I  was  feared  she  was  dead,  for  she  had  been  a  month 
awin'  me  half-a-crown :  "  and  then  with  a  look  and  voice 
of  awe,  she  told  him  how  on  the  night  he  was  sent  for, 
and  immediately  after  he  had  left,  she  had  been  awak- 
ened by  some  one  in  her  room  ;  and  by  her  bright  fire  — 
for  she  was  a  bein,  well-to-do  body  —  she  had  seen  the 
wasted  dying  creature,  who  came  forward  and  said, 
"  Wasn't  it  half-a-crown  ?  "  "  Yes."  "  There  it  is," 
and  putting  it  under  the  bolster,  vanished  ! 

Alas  for  Mary  Duff!  her  career  had  been  a  sad  one 
since  the  day  when  she  had  stood  side  by  side  with 
Hugh  at  the  wedding  of  their  friends.  Her  father  died 
not  long  after,  and  her  mother  supplanted  her  in  the 
affections  of  the  man  to  whom  she  had  given  her  heart. 
The  shock  was  overwhelming,  and  made  home  intolera- 
ble. Mary  fled  from  it  blighted  and  embittered,  and 
after  a  life  of  shame  and  sorrow,  crept  into  the  corner 
of  her  wretched  garret,  to  die  deserted  and  alone  ;  giv- 
ing evidence  in  her  latest  act  that  honesty  had  survived 
amid  the  wreck  of  nearly  every  other  virtue. 

"  My  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither  are  your 
ways  my  ways,  saith  the  Lord.     For  as  the  heavens  are 
higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  my  ways  higher  than  your 
ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  your  thoughts." 
6 


OUR  DOGS. 


"  The  misery  of  keeping  a  dog,  is  his  dying  so  soon  ;  but  to  be  sure,  ij 
he  lived  for  fifty  years,  and  then  died,  what  would  become  of  me?"  — 
Sir  Walter  Scott. 

■'  There  is  in  every  animal's  eye  a  dim  image  and  gleam  of  humanity, 
a  flash  of  strange  light  through  which  their  life  looks  out  and  up  to  our 
great  mystery  of  command  over  them,  and  claims  the  fellowship  if  the 
creature  if  not  of  the  smd."  —  Ruskin. 


To  Sir  Walter  and  Lady  Trevdym's 
glum  and  faithful 

"PETER," 
with  much  regard* 


OUR  DOGS. 


WAS  bitten  severely  by  a  little  dog  when 
with  my  mother  at  Moffat  Wells,  being 
then  three  years  of  age,  and  I  have  re- 
mained "bitten"  ever  since  in  the  matter 
of  dogs.  I  remember  that  little  dog,  and  can  at  this 
moment  not  only  recall  my  pain  and  terror  —  I  have 
no  doubt  I  was  to  blame  — but  also  her  face ;  and  were  I 
allowed  to  search  among  the  shades  in  the  cynic  Elysian 
fields,  I  could  pick  her  out  still.  All  my  life  I  have  been 
familiar  with  these  faithful  creatures,  making  friends  of 
them,  and  speaking  to  them  ;  and  the  only  time  I  ever 
addressed  the  public,  about  a  year  after  being  bitten, 
was  at  the  farm  of  Kirklaw  Hill,  near  Biggar,  when  the 
text,  given  out  from  an  empty  cart  in  which  the  plough- 
men had  placed  me,  was  "  Jacob's  dog,"  and  my  entire 
sermon  was  as  follows  :  —  "  Some  say  that  Jacob  had  a 
black  dog  (the  o  very  long),  and  some  say  that  Jacob 
had  a  white  dog,  but  /  (imagine  the  presumption  of  four 
years !)  say  Jacob  had  a  brown  dog,  and  a  brown  dog  it 
shall  be." 

I  had  many  intimacies  from  this  time  onwards  —  Baw- 
tie,  of  the  inn  ;  Keeper,  the  carrier's  bull-terrier ;  Tiger, 
a  huge  tawny  mastiff  from  Edinburgh,  which  I  think 
must  have  been  an  uncle  of  Rab's ;  all  the  sheep  dogs 


86  OUR  DOGS. 

at  Callands  —  Spring,  Mavis,  Yarrow,  Swallow,  Cheviot, 
etc. ;  but  it  was  not  till  I  was  at  college,  and  my  brother 
at  the  High  School,  that  we  possessed  a  dog. 


TOBY 

Was  the  most  utterly  shabby,  vulgar,  mean-looking  ciu 
I  ever  beheld  :  in  one  word,  a  tyke.  He  had  not  one 
good  feature  except  his  teeth  and  eyes,  and  his  bark,  if 
that  can  be  called  a  feature.  He  was  not  ugly  enough 
to  be  interesting ;  his  color  black  and  white,  his  shape 
leggy  and  clumsy ;  altogether  what  Sydney  Smith  would 
have  called  an  extraordinarily  ordinary  dog ;  and,  as  I 
have  said,  not  even  greatly  ugly,  or,  as  the  Aberdonians 
have  it,  bonnie  wi'  ill-fauredness.  My  brother  William 
found  him  the  centre  of  attraction  to  a  multitude  of  small 
blackguards  who  were  drowning  him  slowly  in  Lochend 
Loch,  doing  their"  best  to  lengthen  out  the  process,  and 
secure  the  greatest  amount  of  fun  with  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  death.  Even  then  Toby  showed  his  great  in- 
tellect by  pretending  to  be  dead,  and  thus  gaining  time 
and  an  inspiration.  William  bought  him  for  twopence, 
and  as  he  had  it  not,  the  boys  accompanied  him  to  Pilrig 
Street,  when  I  happened  to  meet  him,  and  giving  the 
twopence  to  the  biggest  boy,  had  the  satisfaction  of  see- 
ing a  general  engagement  of  much  severity,  during 
which  the  twopence  disappeared ;  one  penny  going  off 
with  a  very  small  and  swift  boy,  and  the  other  vanishing 
hopelessly  into  the  grating  of  a  drain. 

Toby  was  for  weeks  in  the  house  unbeknown  to  any 
one  but  ourselves  two  and  the  cook,  and  from  my  grand- 
mother's love  of  tidiness  and  hatred  of  dogs  and  of  dirt, 


TOBY.  87 

I  believe  she  would  have  expelled  "  him  whom  we  saved 
from  drowning,"  had  not  he,  in  his  straightforward  way. 
walked  into  my  father's  bedroom  one  night  when  he  was 
bathing  his  feet,  and  introduced  himself  with  a  wag  of 
his  tail,  intimating  a  general  willingness  to  be  happy. 
My  father  laughed  most  heartily,  and  at  last  Toby,  hav- 
ing got  his  way  to  his  bare  feet,  and  having  begun  to 
lick  his  soles  and  between  his  toes  with  his  small  rough 
tongue,  my  father  gave  such  an  unwonted  shout  of  laugh- 
ter, that  we  —  grandmother,  sisters,  and  all  of  us  —  went 
in.  Grandmother  might  argue  with  all  her  energy  and 
skill,  but  as  surely  as  the  pressure  of  Tom  Jones'  infan- 
tile fist  upon  Mr.  Allworthy's  forefinger  undid  all  the 
arguments  of  his  sister,  so  did  Toby's  tongue  and  fun 
prove  too  many  for  grandmother's  eloquence.  I  some- 
how think  Toby  must  have  been  up  to  all  this,  for  I 
think  he  had  a  peculiar  love  for  my  father  ever  after, 
and  regarded  grandmother  from  that  hour  with  a  careful 
and  cool  eye. 

Toby,  when  full  grown,  was  a  strong,  coarse  dog ; 
coarse  in  shape,  in  countenance,  in  hair,  and  in  manner. 
I  used  to  think  that,  according  to  the  Pythagorean  doc- 
trine, he  must  have  been,  or  been  going  to  be  a  Gil- 
merton  carter.  He  was  of  the  bull-terrier  variety,  coars- 
ened through  much  mongrelism  and  a  dubious  and  varied 
ancestry.  His  teeth  were  good,  and  he  had  a  large  skull, 
and  a  rich  bark  as  of  a  dog  three  times  his  size,  and  a 
tail  which  I  never  saw  equalled  —  indeed  it  was  a  tail 
per  se  ;  it  was  of  immense  girth  and  not  short,  equal 
throughout  like  a  policeman's  baton  ;  the  machinery  for 
working  it  was  of  great  power,  and  acted  in  a  way,  a? 
far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  quite  original.  We 
called  it  his  ruler. 


88  OUR  DOGS. 

When  he  wished  to  get  into  the  house,  he  first  whined 
gently,  then  growled,  then  gave  a  sharp  bark,  and  then 
came  a  resounding,  mighty  stroke  which  shook  the  house ; 
this,  after  much  study  and  watching,  we  found  was  done 
by  his  bringing  the  entire  length  of  his  solid  tail  flat 
upon  the  door,  with  a  sudden  and  vigorous  stroke ;  it 
was  quite  a  tour  de  force  or  a  coup  de  queue,  and  he  was 
perfect  in  it  at  once,  his  first  bang  authoritative,  having 
been  as  masterly  and  telling  as  his  last. 

With  all  this  inbred  vulgar  air,  he  was  a  dog  of  great 
moral  excellence  —  affectionate,  faithful,  honest  up  to  his 
light,  with  an  odd  humor  as  peculiar  and  as  strong  as  his 
tail.  My  father,  in  his  reserved  way,  was  very  fond  of 
him,  and  there  must  have  been  very  funny  scenes  with 
them,  for  we  heard  bursts  of  laughter  issuing  from  his 
study  when  they  two  were  by  themselves ;  there  was 
something  in  him  that  took  that  grave,  beautiful,  melan- 
choly face.  One  can  fancy  him  in  the  midst  of  his 
books,  and  sacred-work  and  thoughts,  pausing  and  look- 
ing at  the  secular  Toby,  who  was  looking  out  for  a  smile 
to  begin  his  rough  fun,  and  about  to  end  by  coursing  and 
gurrin'  round  the  room,  upsetting  my  father's  books,  laid 
out  on  the  floor  for  consultation,  and  himself  nearly  at 
times,  as  he  stood  watching  him  —  and  off  his  guard  and 
shaking  with  laughter.  Toby  had  always  a  great  desire 
to  accompany  my  father  up  to  town  ;  this  my  father's 
good  taste  and  sense  of  dignity,  besides  his  fear  of  losing 
his  friend  (a  vain  fear !),  forbade,  and  as  the  decision  of 
character  of  each  was  great  and  nearly  equal,  it  was 
often  a  drawn  game.  Toby  ultimately,  by  making  it  his 
entire  object,  triumphed.  He  usually  was  nowhere  to  be 
seen  on  my  father  leaving ;  he  however  saw  him,  and 
lay  in  wait  at  the  head  of  the  street,  and  up  Leith  Walk 


TOBY.  89 

he  kept  him  in  view  from  the  opposite  side  like  a  detec- 
tive, and  then,  when  he  knew  it  was  hopeless  to  hound 
him  home,  he  crossed  unblushingly  over,  and  joined  com- 
pany, excessively  rejoiced  of  course. 

One  Sunday  he  had  gone  with  him  to  church,  and  left 
him  at  the  vestry  door.  The  second  psalm  was  given 
out,  and  my  father  was  sitting  back  in  the  pulpit,  when 
the  door  at  its  back,  up  which  he  came  from  the  vestry, 
was  seen  to  move,  and  gently  open,  then,  after  a  long 
pause,  a  black  shining  snout  pushed  its  way  steadily  into 
the  congregation,  and  was  followed  by  Toby's  entire  body. 
He  looked  somewhat  abashed,  but  snuffing  his  friend,  he 
advanced  as  if  on  thin  ice,  and  not  seeing  him,  put  his 
forelegs  on  the  pulpit,  and  behold  there  he  was,  his  own 
familiar  chum.  I  watched  all  this,  and  anything  more 
beautiful  than  his  look  of  happiness,  of  comfort,  of  entire 
ease  when  he  beheld  his  friend,  —  the  smoothing  down 
of  the  anxious  ears,  the  swing  of  gladness  of  that  mighty 
tail,  —  I  don't  expect  soon  to  see.  My  father  quietly 
opened  the  door,  and  Toby  was  at  his  feet  and  invisible 
to  all  but  himself;  had  he  sent  old  George  Peaston,  the 
"  minister's  man,"  to  put  him  out,  Toby  would  probably 
have  shown  his  teeth,  and  astonished  George.  He  slunk 
home  as  soon  as  he  could,  and  never  repeated  that 
exploit. 

I  never  saw  in  any  other  dog  the  sudden  transition 
irom  discretion,  not  to  say  abject  cowardice,  to  blazing 
and  permanent  valor.  From  his  earliest  years  he  show- 
ed a  general  meanness  of  blood,  inherited  from  many 
generations  of  starved,  bekicked,  and  down-trodden  fore 
fathers  and  mothers,  resulting  in  a  condition  of  intense 
abjectness  in  all  matters  of  personal  fear ;  anybody,  even 
a  beggar,  by  a  gowl  and  a  threat  of  eye,  could  send  him 


90  OUR  DOGS. 

off  howling  by  anticipation,  with  that  mighty  tail  between 
his  legs.  But  it  was  not  always  so  to  be,  and  I  had  the 
privilege  of  seeing  courage,  reasonable,  absolute,  and  for 
life,  spring  up  in  Toby  at  once,  as  did  Athene  from  the 
skull  of  Jove.     Tt  happened  thus  :  — 

Toby  was  in  the  way  of  hiding  his  culinary  bones  in 
the  small  gardens  before  his  own  and  the  neighboring 
doors.  Mr.  Scrymgeour,  two  doors  off,  a  bulky,  chol- 
eric, red-haired,  red-faced  man  —  torvo  vultu  —  was,  by 
the  law  of  contrast,  a  great  cultivator  of  flowers,  and  he 
had  often  scowled  Toby  into  all  but  non-existence  by  a 
stamp  of  his  foot  and  a  glare  of  his  eye.  One  day  his 
gate  being  open,  in  walks  Toby  with  a  huge  bone,  and 
making  a  hole  where  Scrymgeour  had  two  minutes  be- 
fore been  planting  some  precious  slip,  the  name  of  which 
on  paper  and  on  a  stick  Toby  made  very  light  of,  sub- 
stituted his  bone,  and  was  engaged  covering  it,  or  think- 
ing he  was  covering  it  up  with  his  shovelling  nose  (a 
very  odd  relic  of  paradise  in  the  dog),  when  S.  spied 
him  through  the  inner  glass  door,  and  was  out  upon 
him  like  the  Assyrian,  with  a  terrible  gowl.  I  watched 
them.  Instantly  Toby  made  straight  at  him  with  a  roar 
too,  and  an  eye  more  torve  than  Scrymgeour's,  who,  re- 
treating without  reserve,  fell  prostrate,  there  is  reason 
to  believe,  in  his  own  lobby.  Toby  contented  him- 
self with  proclaiming  his  victory  at  the  door,  and  re- 
turning finished  his  bone-planting  at  his  leisure ;  the 
enemy,  who  had  scuttled  behind  the  glass-door,  glaring 
at  him. 

From  this  moment  Toby  was  an  altered  dog.  Pluck 
at  first  sight  was  lord  of  all ;  from  that  time  dated  hia 
first  tremendous  deliverance  of  tail  against  the  door, 
which  we  called  "  come  listen  to  my  tail."     That  very 


TOBY.  91 

evening  he  paid  a  visit  to  Leo,  next  door's  dog,  a  big, 
tyrannical  bully  and  coward,  which  its  master  thought 
a  Newfoundland,  but  whose  pedigree  we  knew  better ; 
this  brute  continued  the  same  system  of  chronic  exter- 
mination which  was  interrupted  at  Lochend,  —  having 
Toby  down  among  his  feet,  and  threatening  him  with 
instant  death  two  or  three  times  a  day.  To  him  Toby 
paid  a  visit  that  very  evening,  down  into  his  den,  and 
walked  about,  as  much  as  to  say  "  Come  on,  Macduff!  " 
but  Macduff  did  not  come  on,  and  henceforward  there 
was  an  armed  neutrality,  and  they  merely  stiffened  up 
and  made  their  backs  rigid,  pretended  each  not  to  see  the 
other,  walking  solemnly  round,  as  is  the  manner  of  dogs. 
Toby  worked  his  new-found  faculty  thoroughly,  but  with 
discretion.  He  killed  cats,  astonished  beggars,  kept  his 
own  in  his  own  garden  against  all  comers,  and  came  off 
victorious  in  several  well-fought  battles  ;  but  he  was  not 
quarrelsome  or  foolhardy.  It  was  very  odd  how  his  car- 
riage changed,  holding  his  head  up,  and  how  much  pleas 
anter  he  was  at  home.  To  my  father,  next  to  William, 
who  was  his  Humane  Society  man,  he  remained  stanch. 
And  what  of  his  end  ?  for  the  misery  of  dogs  is  that  they 
die  so  soon,  or  as  Sir  Walter  says,  it  is  well  they  do ;  for 
if  they  lived  as  long  as  a  Christian,  and  we  liked  them  in 
proportion,  and  they  then  died,  he  said  that  was  a  thing 
he  could  not  stand. 

His  exit  was  miserable,  and  had  a  strange  poetic  or 
tragic  relation  to  his  entrance.  My  father  was  out  of 
town  ;  I  was  away  in  England.  Whether  it  was  that 
the  absence  of  my  father  had  relaxed  his  power  of  moral 
restraint,  or  whether  through  neglect  of  the  servant  he 
had  been  desperately  hungry,  or  most  likely  both  being 
true,  Toby  was  discovered  with  the  remains  of  a  cold 


92  OUR  DOGS. 

leg  of  mutton,  on  which  he  had  made  an  ample  meal ; , 
this  he  was  in  vain  endeavoring  to  plant  as  of  old,  in 
the  hoDe  of  its  remaining  undiscovered  till  to-morrow'a 
hunger  returned,  the  whole  shank  bone  sticking  up  un- 
mistakably. This  was  seen  by  our  excellent  and  Rada- 
manthine  grandmother,  who  pronounced  sentence  on  the 
instant ;  and  next  day,  as  William  was  leaving  for  the 
High  School,  did  he  in  the  sour  morning,  through  an 
easterly  haur,  behold  him  "  whom  he  saved  from  drown- 
ing," and  whom,  with  better  results  than  in  the  case  of 
Launce  and  Crab,  he  had  taught,  as  if  one  should  say, 
"  thus  would  I  teach  a  dog,"  dangling  by  his  own  chain 
from  his  own  lamp-post,  one  of  his  hind  feet  just  touch- 
ing the  pavement,  and  his  body  preternaturally  elongated. 
William  found  him  dead  and  warm,  and  falling  in 
with  the  milk-boy  at  the  head  of  the  street,  questioned 
him,  and  discovered  that  he  was  the  executioner,  and 
had  got  twopence,  he  —  Toby's  every  morning  crony, 
who  met  him  and  accompanied  him  up  the  street,  and 
licked  the  outside  of  his  can  —  had,  with  an  eye  to  speed 
and  convenience,  and  a  want  of  taste,  not  to  say  principle 
and  affection,  horrible  still  to  think  of,  suspended  Toby's 
animation  beyond  all  hope.  William  instantly  fell  upon 
him,  upsetting  his  milk  and  cream,  and  gave  him  a 
thorough  licking,  to  his  own  intense  relief;  and,  being 
late,  he  got  from  Pyper,  who  was  a  martinet,  the  cus- 
tomary palmies,  which  he  bore  with  something  approach- 
ing to  pleasure.  So  died  Toby  ;  my  father  said  little, 
but  he  missed  and  mourned  his  friend. 

1  Tob)r  was  in  the  state  of  the  shepherd  boy  whom  George  "Webster 
met  in  Glenshee,  and  asked,  "  My  man,  were  you  ever  fou'  V  "  "  Ay, 
aince"  speaking  slowly,  as  if  remembering  —  "Ay,  aince."  "What 
on?"    " Cauld  mutton !  " 


WYLIE.  93 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  by  one  of  those  curi- 
ous intertwistings  of  existence,  the  milk-boy  was  that 
one  of  the  drowning  party  who  got  the  penny  of  the 
twopence. 


WYLIE. 

Our  next  friend  was  an  exquisite  shepherd's  dog ; 
fleet,  thin-flanked,  dainty,  and  handsome  as  a  small  gray- 
hound,  with  all  the  grace  of  silky  waving  black  and 
tan  hair.  We  got  him  thus.  Being  then  young  and 
keen  botanists,  and  full  of  the  knowledge  and  love  of 
Tweedside,  having  been  on  every  hill-top  from  Muckle 
Mendic  to  Hundleshope  and  the  Lee  Pen,  and  having 
fished  every  water  from  Tarth  to  the  Leithen,  we  dis- 
covered early  in  spring  that  young  Stewart,  author  of 
an  excellent  book  on  natural  history,  a  young  man  of 
great  promise  and  early  death,  had  found  the  Buxbau- 
mia  aphylla,  a  beautiful  and  odd-looking  moss,  west  of 
Newbie  heights,  in  the  very  month  we  were  that  mo- 
ment in.  We  resolved  to  start  next  day.  We  walked 
to  Peebles,  and  then  up  Haystoun  Glen  to  the  cottage 
of  Adam  Cairns,  the  aged  shepherd  of  the  Newbie  hir- 
sel,  of  whom  we  knew,  and  who  knew  of  us  from  his 
daughter,  Nancy  Cairns,  a  servant  with  Uncle  Aitken 
of  Callands.  We  found  our  way  up  the  burn  with  dif- 
ficulty, as  the  evening  was  getting  dark  ;  and  on  getting 
near  the  cottage  heard  them  at  worship.  We  got  in, 
and  made  ourselves  known,  and  got  a  famous  tea,  and 
such  cream  and  oat  cake  !  —  old  Adam  looking  on  us  as 
"  clean  dementit "  to  come  out  for  "  a  bit  moss,"  which, 
however,  he  knew,  and  with  some  pride  said  he  would 


94  OUR  DOGS. 

take  us  in  the  morning  to  the  place.  As  we  were  going 
into  a  box  bed  for  the  night,  two  young  men  came  in, 
and  said  they  were  "  gaun  to  burn  the  water."  Off  we 
set.  It  was  a  clear,  dark,  starlight,  frosty  night.  They 
had  their  leisters  and  tar  torches,  and  it  was  something 
worth  seeing  —  the  wild  flame,  the  young  fellows  strik* 
ing  the  fish  coming  to  the  light  —  how  splendid  they 
looked  with  the  light  on  their  scales,  coming  out  of  the 
darkness  —  the  stumblings  and  quenchings  suddenly  of 
the  lights,  as  the  torch-bearer  fell  into  a  deep  pool.  We 
got  home  past  midnight,  and  slept  as  we  seldom  sleep 
now.  In  the  morning  Adam,  who  had  been  long  up, 
and  had  been  up  the  "  Hope "  with  his  dog,  when  he 
saw  we  had  wakened,  told  us  there  was  four  inches  of 
snow,  and  we  soon  saw  it  was  too  true.  So  we  had  to 
go  home  without  our  cryptogamic  prize. 

It  turned  out  that  Adam,  who  was  an  old  man  and 
frail,  and  had  made  some  money,  was  going  at  Whit- 
sunday to  leave,  and  live  with  his  son  in  Glasgow. 
We  had  been  admiring  the  beauty  and  gentleness  and 
perfect  shape  of  Wylie,  the  finest  colley  I  ever  saw, 
and  said,  "  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  Wylie  ? " 
"  'Deed,"  says  he,  "  I  hardly  ken.  I  canna  think  o' 
sellin'  her,  though  she's  worth  four  pound,  and  she'll 
no  like  the  toun."  I  said,  "  Would  you  let  me  have 
her  ? "  and  Adam,  looking  at  her  fondly  —  she  came 
up  instantly  to  him,  and  made  of  him  —  said,  "  Ay,  I 
wull,  if  ye'll  be  gude  to  her ; "  and  it  was  settled  that 
when  Adam  left  for  Glasgow  she  should  be  sent  into 
Albany  Street  by  the  carrier. 

She  came,  and  was  at  once  taken  to  all  our  hearts, 
even  grandmother  liked  her ;  and  though  she  was  often 
pensive,  as  if  thinking  of  her  master  and  her  work  on 


WYLIE.  95 

the  hills,  she  made  herself  at  home,  and  behaved  in  all 
respects  like  a  lady.  When  out  with  me,  if  she  saw  sheep 
in  the  streets  or  road,  she  got  quite  excited,  and  helped 
the  work,  and  was  curiously  useful,  the  being  so  making 
her  wonderfully  happy.  And  so  her  little  life  went  on, 
never  doing  wrong,  always  blithe  and  kind  and  beautiful. 
But  some  months  after  she  came,  there  was  a  mystery 
about  her  :  every  Tuesday  evening  she  disappeared  ;  we 
tried  to  watch  her,  but  in  vain,  she  was  always  off  by 
nino  p.m.,  and  was  away  all  night,  coming  back  next 
day  wearied  and  all  over  mud,  as  if  she  had  travelled  far. 
She  slept  all  next  day.  This  went  on  for  some  months 
and  we  could  make  nothing  of  it.  Poor  dear  creature, 
she  looked  at  us  wistfully  when  she  came  in,  as  if  she 
would  have  told  us  if  she  could,  and  was  especially  fond, 
though  tired. 

Well,  one  day  I  was  walking  across  the  Grassmarket, 
with  Wylie  at  my  heels,  when  two  shepherds  started, 
and  looking  at  her,  one  said,  "  That's  her ;  that's  the 
wonderfu'  wee  bitch  that  naebody  kens."  I  asked  him 
what  he  meant,  and  he  told  me  that  for  months  past  she 
had  made  her  appearance  by  the  first  daylight  at  the 
"  buchts  "  or  sheep-pens  in  the  cattle  market,  and  worked 
incessantly,  and  to  excellent  purpose,  in  helping  the 
shepherds  to  get  their  sheep  and  lambs  in.  The  man 
said  with  a  sort  of  transport,  "  She's  a  perfect  meeracle  ; 
flees  about  like  a  speerit,  and  never  gangs  wrang ;  wears 
but  never  grups,  and  beats  a'  oor  dowgs.  She's  a  per- 
fect meeracle,  and  as  soople  as  a  maukin."  Then  he 
related  how  they  all  knew  her,  and  said,  "  There's  that 
wee  fell  yin ;  we'll  get  them  in  noo."  They  tried  to 
coax  her  to  stop  and  be  caught,  but  no,  she  was  gentle, 
but  off ;  and  for  many  a  day  that  "  wee  fell  yin  "  was 


96  OUK  DOGS. 

epoken  of  by  these  rough  fellows.     She  continued  tuis 
amateur  work  till  she  died,  which  she  did  in  peace. 

It  is  very  touching  the  regard  the  south-country  shep- 
herds have  to  their  dogs.  Professor  Syme  one  day, 
many  years  ago,  when  living  in  Forres  Street,  was  look- 
ing out  of  his  window,  and  he  saw  a  young  shepherd 
striding  down  North  Charlotte  Street,  as  if  making  for 
his  house ;  it  was  midsummer.  The  man  had  his  dog 
with  him,  and  Mr.  Syme  noticed  that  he  followed  the 
dog,  and  not  it  him,  though  he  contrived  to  steer  for 
the  house.  He  came,  and  was  ushered  into  his  room  ; 
he  wished  advice  about  some  ailment,  and  Mr.  Syme 
saw  that  he  had  a  bit  of  twine  round  the  dog's  neck, 
which  he  let  drop  out  of  his  hand  when  he  entered  the 
room.  He  asked  him  the  meaning  of  this,  and  he  ex- 
plained that  the  magistrates  had  issued  a  mad-dog  pro- 
clamation, commanding  all  dogs  to  be  muzzled  or  led  on 
pain  of  death.  "And  why  do  you  go  about  as  I  saw 
you  did  before  you  came  in  to  me  ?  "  "  Oh,"  said  he, 
looking  awkward,  "  I  didna  want  Birkie  to  ken  he  was 
tied."  Where  will  you  find  truer  courtesy  and  finer 
feeling?     He  didn't  want  to  hurt  Birkie's  feelings. 

Mr.  Carruthers  of  Inverness  told  me  a  new  story  of 
these  wise  sheep  dogs.  A  butcher  from  Inverness  had 
purchased  some  sheep  at  Dingwall,  and  giving  them  in 
charge  to  his  dog,  left  the  road.  The  dog  drove  them 
on,  till  coming  to  a  toll,  the  toll- wife  stood  before  the 
drove,  demanding  her  dues.  The  dog  looked  at  her, 
and,  jumping  on  her  back,  crossed  his  forelegs  over  her 
arms.  The  sheep  passed  through,  and  the  dog  took  his 
place  behind  them,  and  went  on  his  way. 


RAB.  97 


RAB. 


Of  Rab  I  have  little  to  say,  indeed  have  little  right 
to  speak  of  him  as  one  of  "  our  dogs ; "  but  nobody 
will  be  sorry  to  hear  anything  of  that  noble  fellow. 
Ailie,  the  day  or  two  after  the  operation,  when  she  was 
well  and  cheery,  spoke  about  him,  and  said  she  would 
tell  me  fine  stories  when  I  came  out,  as  I  promised  to 
do,  to  see  her  at  Howgate.  I  asked  her  how  James 
came  to  get  him.  She  told  me  that  one  day  she  saw 
James  coming  down  from  Leadburn  with  the  cart ;  he 
had  been  away  west,  getting  eggs  and  butter,  cheese 
and   hens   for  Edinburgh.     She    saw    he  was    in    some 


a" 


trouble,  and  on  looking,  there  was  what  she  thought  a 
young  calf  being  dragged,  or,  as  she  called  it,  "  haurled," 
at  the  back  of  the  cart.  James  was  in  front,  and  when 
he  came  up,  very  warm  and  very  angry,  she  saw  that 
there  was  a  huge  young  dog  tied  to  the  cart,  struggling 
and  pulling  back  with  all  his  might,  and  as  she  said 
"  lookin'  fearsom."  James,  who  was  out  of  breath  and 
temper,  being  past  his  time,  explained  to  Ailie,  that  this 
"  muckle  brute  o'  a  whalp  "  had  been  worrying  sheep, 
and  terrifying  everybody  up  at  Sir  George  Montgom- 
ery's at  Macbie  Hill,  and  that  Sir  George  had  ordered 
him  to  be  hanged,  which,  however,  was  sooner  said  than 
done,  as  "  the  thief"  showed  his  intentions  of  dying  hard. 
James  came  up  just  as  Sir  George  had  sent  for  his  gun ; 
and  as  the  dog  had  more  than  once  shown  a  liking  foi 
him,  he  said  he  "  wad  gie  him  a  chance ; "  and  so  he 
tied  him  to  his  cart.  Young  Rab,  fearing  some  mischief, 
had  been  entering  a  series  of  protests  all  the  way,  and 
nearly  strangling  himself  to  spite  James  and  Jess,  besides 
7 


99  OUR  DOGS. 

giving  Jess  more  than  usual  to  do.  "  I  wish  I  had  let 
Sir  George  pit  that  charge  into  him,  the  thrawn  brute," 
said  James.  But  Ailie  had  seen  that  in  his  foreleg 
there  was  a  splinter  of  wood,  which  he  had  likely  got 
when  objecting  to  be  hanged,  and  that  he  was  miser 
ably  lame.  So  she  got  James  to  leave  him  with  her, 
and  go  straight  into  Edinburgh.  She  gave  him  water, 
and  by  her  woman's  wit  got  his  lame  paw  under  a  door, 
so  that  he  couldn't  suddenly  get  at  her,  then  with  a 
quick  firm  hand  she  plucked  out  the  splinter,  and  put 
in  an  ample  meal.  She  went  in  some  time  after,  taking 
no  notice  of  him,  and  he  came  limping  up,  and  laid  his 
great  jaws  in  her  lap ;  from  that  moment  they  were 
"chief,"  as  she  said,  James  finding  him  mansuete  and 
civil  when  he  returned. 

She  said  it  was  Rab's  habit  to  make  his  appearance 
exactly  half  an  hour  before  his  master,  trotting  in  full  of 
importance,  as  if  to  say,  "  He's  all  right,  he'll  be  here." 
One  morning  James  came  without  him.  He  had  left 
Edinburgh  very  early,  and  in  coming  near  Auchindinny, 
at  a  lonely  part  of  the  road,  a  man  sprang  out  on  him, 
and  demanded  his  money.  James,  who  was  a  cool  hand, 
said,  "  Weel  a  weel,  let  me  get  it,"  and  stepping  back,  he 
said  to  Rab,  "  Speak  till  him,  my  man."  In  an  instant 
Rab  was  standing  over  him,  threatening  strangulation 
if  he  stirred.  James  pushed  on,  leaving  Rab  in  charge ; 
he  looked  back,  and  saw  that  every  attempt  to  rise  was 
summarily  put  down.  As  he  was  telling  Ailie  the  story, 
up  came  Rab  with  that  great  swing  of  his.  It  turned 
out  that  the  robber  was  a  Howgate  lad,  the  worthless  son 
of  a  neighbor,  and  Rab  knowing  him  had  let  him  cheaply 
off;  the  only  thing,  which  was  seen  by  a  man  from  a  field, 
was,  that  before  letting  him  rise,  he  quenched  {pro  tern- 


WASP.  99 


pore)  the  fire  of  the  eyes  of  the  ruffian,  by  a  familiar 
Gulliverian  application  of  Hydraulics,  which  I  need  not 
further  particularize.  James,  who  did  not  know  the  way 
to  tell  an  untruth,  or  embellish  anything,  told  me  this  as 
what  Le  called  "  a  fact  positeevely." 


WASP 

Was  a  dark  brindled  bull-terrier,  as  pure  in  blood  as 
Cruiser  or  Wild  Dayrell.  She  was  brought  by  my 
brother  from  Otley,  in  the  West  Riding.  She  was  very 
handsome,  fierce,  and  gentle,  with  a  small,  compact,  finely- 
shaped  head,  and  a  pair  of  wonderful  eyes,  —  as  full  of 
fire  and  of  softness  as  Grisi's ;  indeed  she  had  to  my  eye 
a  curious  look  of  that  wonderful  genius  —  at  once  wild 
and  fond.  It  was  a  fine  sight  to  see  her  on  the  prowl 
across  Bowden  Moor,  now  cantering  with  her  nose  down, 
now  gathered  up  on  the  top  of  a  dyke,  and  with  erect 
ears,  looking  across  the  wild  like  a  moss-trooper  out  on 
business,  keen  and  fell.  She  could  do  everything  it  be- 
came a  dog  to  do,  from  killing  an  otter  or  a  polecat,  to 
watching  and  playing  with  a  baby,  and  was  as  docile  to 
her  master  as  she  was  surly  to  all  else.  She  was  not 
quarrelsome,  but  "  being  in,"  she  would  have  pleased 
Polonius  as  much,  as  in  being  "  ware  of  entrance."  She 
was  never  beaten,  and  she  killed  on  the  spot  several  of 
the  country  bullies  who  came  out  upon  her  when  follow- 
ing her  master  in  his  rounds.  She  generally  sent  them 
off  howling  with  one  snap,  but  if  this  was  not  enough, 
6he  made  an  end  of  it. 

But  it  was  as  a  mother  that  she  shone  ;  and  to  see  the 
gypsy,  Hagar-like  creature  nursing  her  occasional  Ishmael 


100  OUR  DOGS. 

—  playing  with  him,  and  fondling  him  all  over,  teaching 
his  teeth  to  war,  and  with  her  eye  and  the  curl  of  her  lip 
daring  any  one  but  her  master  to  touch  him,  was  like 
seeing  Grisi  watching  her  darling  "  Gennaro,"  who  so 
little  knew  why  and  how  much  she  loved  him. 

Once  when  she  had  three  pups,  one  of  them  died 
For  two  days  and  nights  she  gave  herself  up  to  trying 
to  bring  it  to  life  —  licking  it  and  turning  it  over  and 
over,  growling  over  it,  and  all  but  worrying  it  to  awake 
it.  She  paid  no  attention  to  the  living  two,  gave  them 
no  milk,  flung  them  away  with  her  teeth,  and  would 
have  killed  them,  had  they  been  allowed  to  remain  with 
her.  She  was  as  one  possessed,  and  neither  ate,  nor 
drank,  nor  slept,  was  heavy  and  miserable  with  her 
milk,  and  in  such  a  state  of  excitement  that  no  one 
could  remove  the  dead  pup. 

Early  on  the  third  day  she  was  seen  to  take  the  pup 
in  her  mouth,  and  start  across  the  fields  towards  the 
Tweed,  striding  like  a  race-horse  —  she  plunged  in,  hold- 
ing up  her  burden,  and  at  the  middle  of  the  stream  drop- 
ped it  and  swam  swiftly  ashore  ;  then  she  stood  and 
watched  the  little  dark  lump  floating  away,  bobbing  up 
and  down  with  the  current,  and  losing  it  at  last  far  down, 
she  made  her  way  home,  sought  out  the  living  two,  de- 
voured them  with  her  love,  carried  them  one  by  one  to 
her  lair,  and  gave  herself  up  wholly  to  nurse  them  ;  you 
can  fancy  her  mental  and  bodily  happiness  and  relief 
when  they  were  pulling  away  —  and  theirs. 

On  one  occasion  my  brother  had  lent  her  to  a  woman 
who  lived  in  a  lonely  house,  and  whose  husband  was 
away  for  a  time.  She  was  a  capital  watch.  One  day 
an  Italian  with  his  organ  came  —  first  begging,  then  de- 
manding money  —  showing  that  he  knew  she  was  alone, 


JOCK.  101 

and  that  he  meant  to  help  himself,  if  she  didn't.  She 
threatened  to  "  lowse  the  dowg  ;  "  but  as  this  was  Greek 
to  him,  he  pushed  on.  She  had  just  time  to  set  Wasp 
at  him.  It  was  very  short  work.  She  had  him  by  the 
throat,  pulled  him  and  his  organ  down  with  a  heavy 
crash,  the  organ  giving  a  ludicrous  sort  of  cry  of  musi- 
cal pain.  Wasp  thinking  this  was  from  some  creature 
within,  possibly  a  whittret,  left  the  ruffian,  and  set  to 
work  tooth  and  nail  on  the  box.  Its  master  slunk  off, 
and  with  mingled  fury  and  thankfulness  watched  her  dis- 
embowelling his  only  means  of  an  honest  living.  The 
woman  good-naturedly  took  her  off,  and  signed  to  the 
miscreant  to  make  himself  and  his  remains  scarce. 
This  he  did  with  a  scowl ;  and  was  found  in  the  even- 
ing in  the  village,  telling  a  series  of  lies  to  the  watch- 
maker, and  bribing  him  with  a  shilling  to  mend  his  pipes 
—  "  his  kist  o'  whussels." 


JOCK 

Was  insane  from  his  birth ;  at  first  an  amabilis  insa- 
nia,  but  ending  in  mischief  and  sudden  death.  He  was 
an  English  terrier,  fawn-colored  ;  his  mother's  name 
Vamp  (Vampire),  and  his  father's  Demon.  He  was 
more  properly  daft  than  mad ;  his  courage,  muscularity, 
and  prodigious  animal  spirits  making  him  insufferable, 
and  never  allowing  one  sane  feature  of  himself  any 
chance.  No  sooner  was  the  street  door  open,  than  he 
was  throttling  the  first  dog  passing,  bringing  upon  him- 
self and  me  endless  grief.  Cats  he  tossed  up  into  the 
air,  and  crushed  their  spines  as  they  fell.  Old  ladies 
he  upset  by  jumping  over  their  heads  ;   old  gentlemen 


102  OUR  DOGS. 

by  running  between  their  legs.  At  home,  he  would 
think  nothing  of  leaping  through  the  tea-things,  upset- 
ting the  urn,  cream,  etc.,  and  at  dinner  the  same  sorl 
of  thing.  I  believe  if  I  could  have  found  time  to  thrash 
him  sufficiently,  and  let  him  be  a  year  older,  we  might 
have  kept  him  ;  but  having  upset  an  Earl  when  the 
streets  were  muddy,  I  had  to  part  with  him.  He  waa 
sent  to  a  clergyman  in  the  island  of  Westray,  one  of  the 
Orkneys  ;  and  though  he  had  a  wretched  voyage,  and 
was  as  sick  as  any  dog,  he  signalized  the  first  moment 
of  his  arrival  at  the  manse,  by  strangling  an  ancient 
monkey,  or  "  puggy,"  the  pet  of  the  minister,  —  who 
was  a  bachelor,  —  and  the  wonder  of  the  island.  Jock 
henceforward  took  to  evil  courses,  extracting  the  kidneys 
of  the  best  young  rams,  driving  whole  hirsels  down 
steep  places  into  the  sea,  till  at  last  all  the  guns  of 
Westray  were  pointed  at  him,  as  he  stood  at  bay  under 
a  huge  rock  on  the  shore,  and  blew  him  into  space. 
I  always  regret  his  end,  and  blame  myself  for  sparing 
the  rod.     Of 


DUCHIE 

I  have  already  spoken  ;  her  oddities  were  endless.  "We 
had  and  still  have  a  dear  friend,  —  "  Cousin  Susan  "  she 
is  called  by  many  who  are  not  her  cousins  —  a  perfect 
lady,  and,  though  hopelessly  deaf,  as  gentle  and  con- 
tented as  was  ever  Griselda  with  the  full  use  of  her 
ears  ;  quite  as  great  a  pet,  in  a  word,  of  us  all  as  Duchie 
was  of  ours.  One  day  we  found  her  mourning  the  death 
of  a  cat,  a  great  playfellow  of  the  Sputchard's,  and  her 
small  Grace  was  with  us  when  we  were  condoling  with 


DUCHIE.  103 

her,  and  we  saw  that  she  looked  very  wistfully  at  Duchie. 
I  wrote  on  the  slate,  "  Would  you  like  her  ? "  and  she 
through  her  tears  said,  "  You  know  that  would  never 
do."  But  it  did  do.  "We  left  Duchie  that  very  night, 
and  though  she  paid  us  frequent  visits,  she  was  Cousin 
Susan's  for  life.  I  fear  indulgence  dulled  her  moral 
sense.  She  was  an  immense  happiness  to  her  mistress, 
whose  silent  and  lonely  days  she  made  glad  with  her 
oddity  and  mirth.  And  yet  the  small  creature,  old, 
toothless,  and  Mind,  domineered  over  her  gentle  friend 
—  threatening  her  sometimes  if  she  presumed  to  remove 
the  small  Fury  from  the  inside  of  her  own  bed,  into 
which  it  pleased  her  to  creep.  Indeed,  I  believe  it  is 
too  true,  though  it  was  inferred  only,  that  her  mistress 
and  friend  spent  a  great  part  of  a  winter  night  in  trying 
to  coax  her  dear  little  ruffian  out  of  the  centre  of  the 
bed.  One  day  the  cook  asked  what  she  would  have  for 
dinner :  "  I  would  like  a  mutton  chop,  but  then,  you 
know,  Duchie  likes  minced  veal  better  !  "  The  faithful 
and  happy  little  creature  died  at  a  great  age,  of  natural 
decay. 

But  time  would  fail  me,  and  I  fear  patience  would  fail 
you,  my  reader,  were  I  to  tell  you  of  Crab,  of  John 
Pym,  of  Puck,  and  of  the  rest.  Crab,  the  Mugger's 
dog,  grave,  with  deep-set,  melancholy  eyes,  as  of  a  noble- 
man (say  the  Master  of  Ravenswood)  in  disguise,  large 
visaged,  shaggy,  indomitable,  come  of  the  pure  Piper 
Allan's  breed.  This  Piper  Allan,  you  must  know,  lived 
eome  two  hundred  years  ago  in  Cocquet  Water,  piping 
like  Homer,  from  place  to  place,  and  famous  not  less  for 
his  dog  than  for  his  music,  his  news  and  his  songs.  The 
Earl  of  Northumberland,  of  his  day,  offered  the  piper  a 


104  OUR  DOGS. 

small  farm  for  his  dog,  but  after  deliberating  for  a  day 
Allan  said,  "  Na,  na,  ma  Lord,  keep  yir  ferum ;  what 
wud  a  piper  do  wi'  a  ferum  ? "  From  this  dog  de- 
scended Davidson  of  Hyndlee's  breed,  the  original  Dan- 
die-Dinmont,  and  Crab  could  count  his  kin  up  to  him. 
He  had  a  great  look  of  the  Right  Honorable  Edward 
Ellice,  and  had  much  of  his  energy  and  wecht ;  had 
there  been  a  dog  House  of  Commons,  Crab  would  have 
spoken  as  seldom,  and  been  as  great  a  power  in  the 
house,  as  the  formidable  and  faithful  time-out-of-mind 
member  for  Coventry. 

John  Pyjh  was  a  smaller  dog  than  Crab,  ©f  more 
fashionable  blood,  being  a  son  of  Mr.  Somner's  famous 
Shem,  whose  father  and  brother  are  said  to  have  been 
found  dead  in  a  drain  into  which  the  hounds  had  run  a 
fox.  It  had  three  entrances  :  the  father  was  put  in  at 
one  hole,  the  son  at  another,  and  speedily  the  fox  bolted 
out  at  the  third,  but  no  appearance  of  the  little  terriers, 
and  on  digging,  they  were  found  dead,  locked  in  each 
other's  jaws ;  they  had  met,  and  it  being  dark,  and  there 
being  no  time  for  explanations,  they  had  throttled  each 
other.  John  was  made  of  the  same  sort  of  stuff,  and 
was  as  combative  and  victorious  as  his  great  namesake, 
and  not  unlike  him  in  some  of  his  not  so  creditable 
qualities.  He  must,  I  think,  have  been  related  to  a 
certain  dog  to  whom  "life  was  full  o'  sairiousness,"  but 
in  John's  case  the  same  cause  produced  an  opposite 
effect.  John  was  gay  and  light-hearted,  even  when 
there  was  not  "  enuff  of  fechtin,"  which,  however,  sel- 
dom happened,  there  being  a  market  every  week  in 
Melrose,  and  John  appearing  most  punctually  at  the 
cross  to  challenge  all  comers,  and  being  short  legged, 
he  inveigled  every  dog  into  an  engagement  by  first  at- 


DICK.  105 

tacking  liini,  and  then  falling  down  on  his  back,  in  which 
posture  he  latterly  fought  and  won  all  his  battles. 

"What  can  I  say  of  Puck  1  —  the  thoroughbred  —  the 
simple-hearted  —  the  purloiner  of  eggs  warm  from  the 
hen  —  the  flutterer  of  all  manner  of  Volscians  —  the 
bandy-legged,  dear,  old,  dilapidated  buffer?  I  got  him 
from  my  brother,  and  only  parted  with  him  because 
William's  stock  was  gone.  He  had  to  the  end  of  life 
a  simplicity  which  was  quite  touching.  One  summei 
day  —  a  dog-day  —  when  all  dogs  found  straying  were 
hauled  away  to  the  police-office,  and  killed  off  in  twen- 
ties with  strychnine,  I  met  Puck  trotting  along  Princes 
Street  with  a  policeman,  a  rope  round  his  neck,  he  look- 
ing up  in  the  fatal,  official,  but  kindly  countenance  in  the 
most  artless  and  cheerful  manner,  wagging  his  tail  and 
trotting  along.  In  ten  minutes  he  would  have  been  in 
the  next  world ;  for  I  am  one  of  those  who  believe  dogs 
have  a  next  world,  and  why  not  ?  Puck  ended  his  days 
as  the  best  dog  in  Roxburghshire.     Placide  quiescas  I 


DICK 

Still  lives,  and  long  may  he  live !  As  he  was  never 
born,  possibly  he  may  never  die ;  be  it  so,  he  will  miss 
us  when  we  are  gone.  I  could  say  much  of  him,  but 
agree  with  the  lively  and  admirable  Dr.  Jortin,  when,  in 

1  In  The,  Dog,  by  Stonehenge,  an  excellent  book,  there  is  a  wood- 
cut of  Puck,  and  "  Dr.  Wm.  Brown's  celebrated  dog  John  Pym  "  is 
mentioned.  Their  pedigrees  are  given  —  here  is  Puck's,  which  shows 
his  "  strain  "  is  of  the  pure  azure  blood  —  "  Got  by  John  Pym,  out  of 
Tib;  bred  by  Purves  of  Leaderfoot;  sire,  Old  Pandie,  the  famous  dog 
of  old  John  Stoddart  of  Selkirk  —  dam,  Whin."  How  Homeric  aU 
this  sounds !     I  cannot  help  quoting  what  follows  —  "  Sometimes  a 


106  OUR  DOGS. 

his  dedication  of  his  Remarks  on  Ecclesiastical  History 
to  the  then  (1752)  Archhishop  of  Canterbury,  he  ex- 
cuses himself  for  not  following  the  modern  custom  of 
praising  his  Patron,  by  reminding  his  Grace  "  that  it 
was  a  custom  amongst  the  ancients,  not  to  sacrifice  to 
heroes  till  after  sunset."  I  defer  my  sacrifice  till  Dick's 
sun  is  set. 

I  think  every  family  should  have  a  dog  ;  it  is  like  hav- 
ing a  perpetual  baby  ;  it  is  the  plaything  and  crony  of 
the  whole  house.  It  keeps  them  all  young.  All  unite 
upon  Dick.  And  then  he  tells  no  tales,  betrays  no 
secrets,  never  sulks,  asks  no  troublesome  questions,  never 
gets  into  debt,  never  coming  down  late  for  breakfast,  or 
coming  in  through  his  Chubb  too  early  to  bed  —  is  always 
ready  for  a  bit  of  fun,  lies  in  wait  for  it,  and  you  may, 
if  choleric,  to  your  relief,  kick  him  instead  of  some  one 
else,  who  would  not  take  it  so  meekly,  and,  moreover, 
would  certainly  not,  as  he  does,  ask  your  pardon  for  be- 
ing kicked. 

Never  put  a  collar  on  your  dog  —  it  only  gets  him 
stolen  ;  give  him  only  one  meal  a  day,  and  let  that,  as 
Dame  Dorothy,  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  wife,  would  say, 
be  "rayther  under."  Wash  him  once  a  week,  and  al- 
ways wash  the  soap  out  ;  and  let  him  be  carefully 
combed  and  brushed  twice  a  week. 

By  the  bye,  I  was  wrong  in  saying  that  it  was  Burns 
who  said  Man  is  the  God  of  the  Dog  —  he  got  it  from 
Bacon's  Essay  on  Atheism. 

Dandie  pup  of  a  good  strain  may  appear  not  to  be  game  at  an  early 
age;  but  he  should  not  be  parted  with  on  this  account,  because  many 
of  them  do  not  show  their  courage  till  nearly  two  years  old,  and  then 
nothing  can  beat  them;  this  apparent  softness  arising,  as  I  suspect, 
from  kindness  of  heart "  — a  suspicion,  my  dear  "  Stonehenge,"  which 
is  true,  and  shows  your  own  "  kindness  of  heart,"  as  well  as  sense. 


QUEEN  MARTS    CHILD -GARDER 


QUEEN  MARY'S    CHILD-GARDEN. 


±R3 


^  F  any  one  wants  a  pleasure  that  is  sure  to 
please,  one  over  which  he  needn't  growl 
the  sardonic  beatitude  of  the  great  Dean,  let 
him,  when  the  Mercury  is  at  "  Fair,"  take 
the  nine  a.m.  train  to  the  North  and  a  return-ticket 
for  Callander,  and  when  he  arrives  at  Stirling,  let 
him  ask  the  most  obliging  and  knowing  of  station- 
masters  to  telegraph  to  "  the  Dreadnought "  for  a  car- 
riage to  be  in  waiting.  When  passing  Dunblane  Cathe- 
dral, let  him  resolve  to  write  to  the  Scotsman,  advis- 
ing the  removal  of  a  couple  of  shabby  trees  which 
obstruct  the  view  of  that  beautiful  triple  end  window 
which  Mr.  Ruskin  and  everybody  else  admires,  and  by 
the  time  he  has  written  this  letter  in  his  mind,  and 
turned  the  sentences  to  it,  he  will  find  himself  at  Cal- 
lander and  the  carriage  all  ready.  Giving  the  order  for 
the  Port  of  Monteith,  he  will  rattle  through  this  hard- 
featured,  and  to  our  eye  comfortless  village,  lying  ugly 
amid  so  much  grandeur  and  beauty,  and  let  him  stop 
on  the  crown  of  the  bridge,  and  fill  his  eyes  with  the 
perfection  of  the  view  up  the  Pass  of  Leny  —  the  Teith 
lying  diffuse  and  asleep,  as  if  its  heart  were  in  the  High- 
lands and  it  were  loath  to  go,  the  noble  Ben  Ledi  im- 
aged in  its  broad  stream.  Then  let  him  make  his  way 
across  a  bit  of  pleasant  moorland  —  flushed  with  maiden- 


110  QUEEN  MARY'S   CHILD-GARDEN. 

hair  and  white  with  cotton  grass,  and  fragrant  with  the 
Orchis  conopsia,  well  deserving  its  epithet  odoratissima. 

He  will  see  from  the  turn  of  the  hill-side  the  Blair  of 
Drummond  waving  with  corn  and  shadowed  with  rich 
woods,  where  eighty  years  ago  there  was  a  black  peat- 
moss ;  and  far  off,  on  the  horizon,  Damyat  and  the 
Touch  Fells ;  and  at  his  side  the  little  loch  of  Ruskie, 
in  which  he  may  see  five  Highland  cattle,  three  tawny 
brown  and  two  brindled,  standing  in  the  still  water  — 
themselves  as  still,  all  except  their  switching  tails  and 
winking  ears  —  the  perfect  images  of  quiet  enjoyment. 
By  this  time  he  will  have  come  in  sight  of  the  Lake  of 
Monteith,  set  in  its  woods,  with  its  magical  shadows  and 
soft  gleams.  There  is  a  loveliness,  a  gentleness  and 
peace  about  it  more  like  "  lone  St.  Mary's  Lake,"  or 
Derwent  Water,  than  of  any  of  its  sister  lochs.  It  is 
lovely  rather  than  beautiful,  and  is  a  sort  of  gentle  prel- 
ude, in  the  minor  key,  to  the  coming  glories  and  intense* 
charms  of  Loch  Ard  and  the  true  Highlands  beyond. 

You  are  now  at  the  Port,  and  have  passed  the  se- 
cluded and  cheerful  manse,  and  the  parish  kirk  with  its 
graves,  close  to  the  lake,  and  the  proud  aisle  of  the  Gra- 
hams of  Gartmore  washed  by  its  waves.  Across  the 
road  is  the  modest  little  inn,  a  Fisher's  Tryst.  On  the 
unruffled  water  lie  several  islets,  plump  with  rich  foli- 
age, brooding  like  great  birds  of  calm.  You  somehow 
think  of  them  as  on,  not  in  the  lake,  or  like  clouds  lying 
in  a  nether  sky  — "  like  ships  waiting  for  the  wind." 
You  get  a  coble,  and  a  yauld  old  Celt,  its  master,  and 
are  rowed  across  to  Inchmahome,  the  Isle  of  Rest.  Here 
you  find  on  landing  huge  Spanish  chestnuts,  one  lying 
dead,  others  standing  stark  and  peeled,  like  gigantic  ant- 
lers, and  others  flourishing  in  their  viridis  senectus,  and 


QUEEN  MARY'S   CHILD-GARDEN.  Ill 

in  a  thicket  of  wood  you  see  the  remains  of  a  monastery 
of  great  beauty,  the  design  and  workmanship  exquisite. 
You  wander  through  the  ruins,  overgrown  with  ferns 
and  Spanish  filberts,  and  old  fruit-trees,  and  at  the  cor 
ner  of  the  old  monkish  garden  you  come  upon  one  of 
the  strangest  and  most  touching  sights  you  ever  saw  — 
an  oval  space  of  about  18  feet  by  12,  with  the  remains 
of  a  double  row  of  boxwood  all  round,  the  plants  of  box 
being  about  fourteen  feet  high,  and  eight  or  nine  inches 
in  diameter,  healthy,  but  plainly  of  great  age. 

What  is  this  ?  it  is  called  in  the  guide-books  Queen 
Mary's  Bower  ;  but  besides  its  being  plainly  not  in  the 
least  a  bower,  what  could  the  little  Queen,  then  five 
years  old,  and  "  fancy  free,"  do  with  a  bower  ?  It  is 
plainly,  as  was,  we  believe,  first  suggested  by  our  keen- 
sighted  and  diagnostic  Professor  of  Clinical  Surgery,1 
the  Child- Queen's  Garden,  with  her  little  walk,  and  its 
rows  of  boxwood,  left  to  themselves  for  three  hundred 
years.  Yes,  without  doubt,  "  here  is  that  first  garden 
of  her  simpleness."  Fancy  the  little,  lovely  royal  child, 
with  her  four  Marys,  her  playfellows,  her  child  maids 
of  honor,  with  their  little  hands  and  feet,  and  their  in- 
nocent and  happy  eyes,  pattering  about  that  garden  all 
that  time  ago,  laughing,  and  running,  and  gardening  as 
only  children  do  and  can.  As  is  well  known,  Mary  was 
placed  by  her  mother  in  this  Isle  of  Rest  before  sailing 
from  the  Clyde  for  France.  There  is  something  "  that 
tirls  the  heartstrings  a'  to  the  life  "  in  standing  and  look- 

1  The  same  seeing  eye  and  understanding  mind,  when  they  were 
eighteen  years  of  age,  discovered  and  published  the  Solvent,  of  Caout- 
chouc, for  which  a  patent  was  taken  out  afterwards  by  the  famous 
Mackintosh.  If  the  young  discoverer  had  secured  the  patent,  he  might 
have  made  a  fortune  as  large  as  his  present  reputation  —  I  don't  sup- 
pose he  much  regrets  that  he  didn't. 


112  QUEEN  MARY'S   CHILD-GARDEN. 

ing  on  this  unmistakable  living  relic  of  that  strange 
and  pathetic  old  time.  Were  we  Mr.  Tennyson,  we 
would  write  an  Idyll  of  that  child  Queen,  in  that  garden 
of  hers,  eating  her  bread  and  honey  —  getting  her  teach- 
ing from  the  holy  men,  the  monks  of  old,  and  running 
off  in  wild  mirth  to  her  garden  and  her  flowers,  all  un 
conscious  of  the  black,  lowering  thunder-cloud  on  Ben 
Lomond's  shoulder. 

"  Oh,  blessed  vision !  happy  child ! 
Thou  art  so  exquisitely  wild; 
I  think  of  thee  with  many  fears 
Of  what  may  be  thy  lot  in  future  years. 
I  thought  of  times  when  Pain  might  be  thy  guest, 
Lord  of  thy  house  and  hospitality. 
And  Grief,  uneasy  lover!  never  rest 
But  when  she  sat  within  the  touch  of  thee. 
What  hast  thou  to  do  with  sorrow, 
Or  the  injuries  of  to-morrow?" 

You  have  ample  time  to  linger  there  amid 

"  The  gleams,  the  shadows,  and  the  peace  profound," 

and  get  your  mind  informed  with  quietness  and  beauty, 
*and  fed  with  thoughts  of  other  years,  and  of  her  whose 
story,  like  Helen  of  Troy's,  will  continue  to  move  the 
hearts  of  men  as  long  as  the  gray  hills  stand  round 
about  that  gentle  lake,  and  are  mirrored  at  evening  in 
its  depths.  You  may  do  and  enjoy  all  this,  and  be  in 
Princes  Street  by  nine  p.  m  ;  and  we  wish  we  were  as 
sure  of  many  things  as  of  your  saying,  "  Yes,  this  is  a 
pleasure  that  has  pleased,  and  will  please  again  ;  this 
was  something  expected  which  did  not  disappoint." 


QUEEN  MARY'S   CHILD-GARDEN.  113 

There  is  another  garden  of  Queen  Mary's,  which  may 
still  be  seen,  and  which  has  been  left  to  itself  like  that  in 
the  Isle  of  Rest.  It  is  in  the  grounds  at  Chatsworth, 
and  is  moated,  walled  round,  and  raised  about  fifteen 
feet  above  the  park.  Here  the  Queen,  when  a  prisoner 
under  the  charge  of  "  Old  Bess  of  Hardwake,"  was  al- 
lowed to  walk  without  any  guard.  How  different  the 
t  wo  !  and  how  different  she  who  took  her  pleasure  in 
Ihem ! 

Lines  written  on  the  steps  of  a  small  moated  garden  at  Chatsworth, 
called 

"  Queen  Mary's  Bowee. 

"  The  moated  bower  is  wild  and  drear, 
And  sad  the  dark  yew's  shade; 
The  flowers  which  bloom  in  silence  here. 
In  silence  also  fade. 

"  The  woodbine  and  the  light  wild  rose 
Float  o'er  the  broken  wall; 
And  here  the  mournful  nightshade  blows, 
To  note  the  garden's  fall. 

"  Where  once  a  princess  wept  her  woes, 
The  bird  of  night  complains; 
And  sighing  trees  the  tale  disclose 
They  learnt  from  Mary's  strains. 

"A.  H." 
8 


PRESENCE    OF  MIND,  AND  HAPPY  GUESSING 


"  Depend  upon  it  a  lucky  guess  is  never  merely  luck  —  there  it  alwayt 
tome  talent  in  it."  —  Miss  Austkn,  in  Emma. 


PRESENCE   OF   MIND,  AND   HAPPY 
GUESSING. 

\U.  CHALMERS  used  to  say  that  in  the 
dynamics  of  human  affairs,  two  qualities 
were  essential  to  greatness  —  Power  and 
Promptitude.  One  man  might  have  both, 
another  power  without  promptitude,  another  prompti- 
tude without  power.  We  must  all  feel  the  common 
sense  of  this,  and  can  readily  see  how  it  applies  to 
a  general  in  the  field,  to  a  pilot  in  a  storm,  to  a 
sportsman,  to  a  fencer,  to  a  debater.  It  is  the  same 
with  an  operating  surgeon  at  all  times,  and  may  be  at 
any  time  with  the  practitioner  of  the  art  of  healing. 
He  must  be  ready  for  what  are  called  emergencies  — 
cases  which  rise  up  at  your  feet,  and  must  be  dealt 
with  on  the  instant,  —  he  must  have  power  and  promp 
titude. 

It  is  a  curious  condition  of  mind  that  this  requires 
it  is  like  sleeping  with  your  pistol  under  your  pillow, 
and  it  on  full  cock ;  a  moment  lost  and  all  may  be  lost. 
There  is  the  very  nick  of  time.  This  is  what  we  mean 
by  presence  of  mind ;  by  a  man  having  such  a  subject 
at  his  finger  ends ;  that  part  of  the  mind  lying  nearest 
the  outer  world,  and  having  to  act  on  it  through  the 
bodily  organs,  through  the  will  —  the  outposts  must  be 
always  awake.     It  is  of  course,  so  to  speak,  only  a  por- 


118     PRESENCE  OF  MIND,  AND  HAPPY  GUESSING. 

tion  of  the  mind  that  is  thus  needed  and  thus  available  ; 
if  the  whole  mind  were  forever  at  the  advanced  posts, 
it  would  soon  lose  itself   in    this    endeavor  to  keep  it. 
Now,  though  the  thing  needed  to  be  done  may  be  simple 
enough,  what  goes  to  the  doing  of  it,  and  to  the  being  at 
once  ready  and  able  to  do  it,  involves  much  :  the  wedge 
would  not  be  a  wedge,  or  do  a  wedge's  work,  without 
the  width  behind  as  well  as  the  edge   in  front.     Your 
men  of  promptitude  without  genius  or  power,  including 
knowledge  and  will,  are  those  who  present  the  wedge  the 
wrong  way.     Thus  your  extremely  prompt  people  are 
often   doing   the    wrong   thing,  which  is  almost   always 
worse  than  nothing.     Our  vague  friend  who  bit  "  Yar- 
row's "    tail    instead    of   "  the  Chicken's,"    was   full  of 
promptitude ;    as  was    also  that  other  man,  probably  a 
relative,  who  barred  the  door  with  a  boiled  carrot ;    each 
knew  what  was  needed  —  the  biting  the  tail,  the  barring 
the  door  ;  both  erred  as  to  the  means  —  the  one  by  want 
of  presence  of  mind,  the  other  by  lack  of  mind  itself. 
We  must  have  just  enough  of  the  right  knowledge  and 
no  more ;  we  must  have  the  habit   of  using  this ;   we 
must  have  self-reliance,  and  the  consentaneousness  of  the 
entire  mind ;  and  what  our  hand  finds  to  do,  we  must  do 
with  our  might  as  well  as  with  it.     Therefore  it  is  that 
this  master  act  of  the  man,  under  some  sudden  and  great 
unexpected  crisis,  is  in  a  great  measure  performed  un- 
consciously as  to  its  mental  means.     The  man  is   so  totus 
in  Mo,  that  there  is  no  bit  of  the  mind  left  to  watch  and 
record  the  acts  of  the  rest ;  therefore  men,  when  they 
have  done  some  signal  feat  of  presence  of  mind,  if  asked 
how  they  did  it,  generally  don't  very  well  know  —  they 
just  did  it ;  it  was,  in  fact,  done  and  then  thought  of, 
not  thought  of  and  then  done,  in   which  case  it  would 


PKESENCE  OF  MIND,  AND  HAPPY   GUESSING.      US 

likely  never  have  been  done.  Not  that  the  act  was  un- 
caused by  mind  ;  it  is  one  of  the  highest  powers  of 
mind  thus  to  act ;  but  it  is  done,  if  I  may  use  the  phrase, 
by  an  acquired  instinct.  You  will  find  all  this  in  that 
wonderful  old  Greek  who  was  Alexander  the  Great's 
and  the  old  world's  schoolmaster,  and  ours  if  we  were 
wise,  —  whose  truthfulness  and  clear  insight  one  won- 
ders at  the  longer  he  lives.  He  seems  to  have  seen 
the  human  mind  as  a  bird  or  an  engineer  does  the  earth 
—  he  knew  the  plan  of  it.  "We  now-a-days  see  it  as 
one  sees  a  country,  athwart  and  in  perspective,  and  from 
the  side ;  he  saw  it  from  above  and  from  below.  There 
are  therefore  no  shadows,  no  foreshortenings,  no  clear- 
obscure,  indeed  no  disturbing  medium ;  it  is  as  if  he 
examined  everything  in  vacuo.  I  refer  my  readers  to 
what  he  says  on  'Ay^iWa  and  Eucrro^ta.1 

1  As  I  am  now,  to  my  sorrow  and  shame,  too  much  of  a  mediate 
Grecian,  I  give  a  Balliol  friend's  note  on  these  two  words: — "What 
you  have  called  'presence  of  mind'  and  '  happy  guessing '  may,  I 
think,  be  identified  respectively  with  Aristotle's  uyx'ivoia  and  evarox'ta. 
The  latter  of  these,  evaroxia,  Aristotle  mentions  incidentally  when 
treating  of  svpovTiia,  or  good  deliberation.  Eth.  Nic.  bk.  vi.  ch.  9. 
Good  deliberation,  he  says,  is  not  evotox'lo.,  for  the  former  is  a  slow 
process,  whereas  the  latter  is  not  guided  by  reason,  and  is  rapid.  In 
the  same  passage  he  tells  us  that  ayxivoia  is  a  sort  of  evaroxia-  But 
he  speaks  of  ayxivoia  more  fully  in  Ana.  Post.  i.  34:  — '  'Ayxivoia 
is  a  sort  of  happy  guessing  at  the  intermediate,  when  there  is  not  time 
for  consideration :  as  when  a  man,  seeing  that  the  bright  side  of  the 
moon  is  always  turned  towards  the  sun,  comprehends  that  her  light  is 
borrowed  from  the  sun;  or  concludes,  from  seeing  one  conversing  with 
a  capitalist  that  he  wants  to  borrow  money ;  or  infers  that  per  pie  are 
friends  from  the  fact  of  their  having  common  enemies.'  "  And  then  he 
goes  on  to  make  these  simple  observations  confused  and  perplexing  by 
reducing  them  to  his  logical  formula. 

"The  derivation  of  the  words  will  confirm  this  view.  ~Evaroxia 
is  a  hitting  the  mark  successfully,  a  reaching  to  the  end,  the  rapid  and, 
as  it  were,  intuitive  perception  of  the  truth.     This  is  what  Whewel] 


120     PRESENCE    OF  MIND,   AND  HAPPY  GUESSING. 

My  object  in  what  I  have  now  written  and  am  going 
to  write,  is  to  impress  upon  medical  students  the  value 
of  power  and  promptitude  in  combination,  for  their  pro- 
fessional purposes ;  the  uses  to  them  of  nearness  of  the 
Nous,  and  of  happy  guessing  ;  and  how  you  may  see 
the  sense,  and  neatness,  and  pith  of  that  excellent 
thinker,  as  well  as  best  of  all  story-tellers,  Miss  Aus- 
ten, when  she  says  in  Emma,  "  Depend  upon  it,  a  lucky 
guess  is  never  merely  luck,  there  is  always  some  talent 
in  it."  Talent  here  denoting  intelligence  and  will  in 
action.  In  all  sciences  except  those  called  exact,  this 
happy  guessing  plays  a  large  part,  and  in  none  more 
than  in  medicine,  which  is  truly  a  tentative  art,  founded 

means  by  saying,  '  all  induction  is  a  happy  conjecture.'  But  when 
Aristotle  says  that  this  faculty  is  not  guided  by  reason  (uvsv  re  yap 
'Aoyov),  he  does  not  mean  to  imply  that  it  grows  up  altogether  inde- 
pendent of  reason,  any  more  than  Whewell  means  to  say  that  all  the 
discoveries  in  the  inductive  sciences  have  been  made  by  men  taking 
'shots'  at  them,  as  boys  at  school  do  at  hard  passages  in  their  Latin 
lessons.  On  the  contrary,  no  faculty  is  so  absolutely  the  child  of  reason 
as  this  faculty  of  happy  guessing  It  only  attains  to  perfection  after 
the  rea=on  has  been  long  and  painfully  trained  in  the  sphere  in  which 
the  guesses  are  to  be  made.  What  Aristotle  does  mean  is,  that  when  it 
has  attained  perfection,  we  are  not  conscious  of  the  share  which  reason 
has  in  its  operation  —  it  is  so  rapid  that  by  no  analysis  can  we  detect 
the  presence  of  reason  in  its  action.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  seeing  the 
apple  fall,  and  thence  '  guessing  '  at  the  law  of  gravitation,  is  a  good 
instance  of  evoTOxia. 

"  'Ayx'woia,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  nearness  of  mind;  not  a  reaching 
(o  the  end,  but  an  apprehension  of  the  best  means;  not  a  perception 
of  the  truth,  but  a  perception  of  how  the  truth  is  to  be  supported.  It 
is  sometimes  translated  '  sagacity,'  but  readiness  or  presence  of  mind 
is  better,  as  sagacity  rather  involves  the  idea  of  consideration.  In 
matters  purely  intellectual  it  is  ready  wit.  It  is  a  sort  of  shorter  or 
more  limited  evarox'ia.  It  is  more  of  a  natural  gift  than  evoTOx'ia, 
oecause  the  latter  is  a  far  higher  and  nobler  faculty,  and  therefore 
more  dependent  for  its  perfection  on  cultivation,  as  all  our  highest 
faculties  are.  Evaroxia  is  more  akin  to  genius,  uyxivuia  to  practical 
common  sense." 


PRESENCE  OF  MIND,  AND  HAPPY   GUESSING.     121 

upon  likelihood,  and  is  therefore  what  we  call  contingent 
Instead  of  this  view  of  the  healing  art  discouraging  up 
from  making  our  ultimate  principles  as  precise,  as  we 
should  make  our  observations,  it  should  urge  us  the 
more  to  this ;  for,  depend  upon  it,  that  guess  as  we 
may  often  have  to  do,  he  will  guess  best,  most  happily 
for  himself  and  his  patient,  who  has  the  greatest  amount 
of  true  knowledge,  and  the  most  serviceable  amount  of 
what  we  may  call  mental  cash,  ready  money,  and  ready 
weapons. 

We  must  not  only  have  wisdom,  which  is  knowledge 
assimilated  and  made  our  own,  but  we  must,  as  the 
Lancashire  men  say  and  do,  have  wit  to  use  it.  We 
may  carry  a  nugget  of  gold  in  our  pocket,  or  a  £100 
bank-note,  but  unless  we  can  get  it  changed,  it  is  of  little 
use,  and  we  must  moreover  have  the  coin  of  the  coun- 
try we  are  in.  This  want  of  presence  of  mind,  and 
having  your  wits  about  you,  is  as  fatal  to  a  surgeon  as 
to  a  general. 

That  wise  little  man,  Dr.  Henry  Marshall,  little  in 
body  but  not  little  in  mind,  in  brain,  and  in  worth,  used 
to  give  an  instance  of  this.  A  young,  well-educated 
surgeon,  attached  to  a  regiment  quartered  at  Mussel- 
burgh, went  out  professionally  with  two  officers  who 
were  in  search  of  "  satisfaction."  One  fell  shot  in  the 
thigh,  and  in  half  an  hour  after  he  was  found  dead,  the 
surgeon  kneeling  pale  and  grim  over  him,  with  his  two 
thumbs  sunk  in  his  thigh  below  the  wound,  the  grass 
steeped  in  blood.  If  he  had  put  them  two  inches  higher, 
or  extemporized  a  tourniquet  with  his  sash  and  the  pis- 
tol's ramrod  and  a  stone,  he  might  have  saved  his  friend's 
life  and  his  own  —  for  he  shot  himself  that  night. 

Here  is  another.     Robbie  Watson,  whom  I  now  see 


122     PRESENCE  OF  MIND,  AND  HAPPY  GUESSING. 

walking  mildly  about  the  streets  —  having  taken  to  coal 
■ —  was  driver  of  the  Dumfries  coach  by  Biggar.  One 
day  he  had  changed  horses,  and  was  starting  down  a 
steep  hill,  with  an  acute  turn  at  the  foot,  when  he  found 
his  wheelers,  two  new  horses,  utterly  ignorant  of  back- 
ing. They  got  furious,  and  we  outside  got  alarmed. 
Robbie  made  an  attempt  to  pull  up,  and  then  with  an 
odd  smile  took  his  whip,  gathered  up  his  reins,  and 
lashed  the  entire  four  into  a  gallop.  If  we  had  not 
seen  his  face  we  would  have  thought  him  a  maniac  ; 
he  kept  them  well  together,  and  shot  down  like  an 
arrow,  as  far  as  we  could  see  to  certain  destruction. 
Right  in  front  at  the  turn  was  a  stout  gate  into  a  field, 
shut ;  he  drove  them  straight  at  that,  and  through  we 
went,  the  gate  broken  into  shivers,  and  we  finding  our- 
selves safe,  and  the  very  horses  enjoying  the  joke.  I 
remember  we  emptied  our  pockets  into  Robbie's  hat, 
which  he  had  taken  off  to  wipe  his  head.  Now,  in  a 
few  seconds  all  this  must  have  passed  through  his  head 
—  "  that  horse  is  not  a  wheeler,  nor  that  one  either  ; 
we'll  come  to  mischief;  there's  the  gate;  yes,  I'll  do 
it."  And  he  did  it ;  but  then  he  had  to  do  it  with  his 
might;  he  had  to  make  it  impossible  for  his  four  horses 
to  do  anything  but  toss  the  gate  before  them. 

Here  is  another  case.  Dr.  Reid  of  Peebles,  long 
famous  in  the  end  of  last  and  beginning  of  this  century, 
as  the  Doctor  of  Tweeddale ;  a  man  of  great  force  of 
character,  and  a  true  Philip,  a  lover  of  horses,  saw  one 
Fair  day  a  black  horse,  entire,  thoroughbred.  The  groom 
asked  a  low  price,  and  would  answer  no  questions.  At 
the  close  of  the  fair  the  doctor  bought  him,  amid  the 
derision  of  his  friends.  Next  morning  he  rode  him  up 
Tweed,  came  home  after  a  long  round,  and  had  never 


PRESENCE  OF  MIND,  AND  HAPPY  GUESSDTG.    123 

been  better  carried.  Tbis  went  on  for  some  weeks ;  the 
fine  creature  was  without  a  fault.  One  Sunday  morning, 
he  was  posting  up  by  Neidpath  at  a  great  pace,  the  coun- 
try people  trooping  into  the  town  to  church.  Opposite 
the  fine  old  castle,  the  thorough-bred  stood  stock  still,  and 
it  needed  all  the  doctor's  horsemanship  to  counteract  the 
law  of  projectiles  ;  he  did,  and  sat  still,  and  not  only 
gave  no  sign  of  urging  the  horse,  but  rather  intimated 
that  it  was  his  particular  desire  that  he  should  stop.  He 
sat  there  a  full  hour,  his  friends  making  an  excellent  joke 
of  it,  and  he  declining,  of  course,  all  interference.  At 
the  end  of  the  hour,  the  Black  Duke,  as  he,  was  called, 
turned  one  ear  forward,  then  another,  looked  aside,  shook 
himself,  and  moved  on,  his  master  intimating  that  this 
was  exactly  what  he  wished  ;  and  from  that  day  till  his 
death,  some  fifteen  years  after,  never  did  these  two 
friends  allude  to  this  little  circumstance,  and  it  was 
never  repeated ;  though  it  turned  out  that  he  had  killed 
his  two  men  previously.  The  doctor  must  have,  when 
he  got  him,  said  to  himself,  "  if  he  is  not  stolen  there  is 
a  reason  for  his  paltry  price,"  and  he  would  go  over  all 
the  possibilities.  So  that  when  he  stood  still,  he  would 
say,  "  Ah,  this  is  it  ;  "  but  then  he  saw  this  at  once,  and 
lost  no  time,  and  did  nothing.  Had  he  given  the  horse 
one  dig  with  his  spurs,  or  one  cut  with  his  whip,  or  an 
impatient  jerk  with  his  bit,  the  case  would  have  failed. 
When  a  colt  it  had  been  brutally  used,  and  being  nerv- 
ous, it  lost  its  judgment,  poor  thing,  and  lost  its  presence 
of  mind. 

One  more  instance  of  nearness  of  the  No£>s.  A  lady 
was  in  front  of  her  lawn  with  her  children,  when  a  mad 
dog  made  his  appearance,  pursued  by  the  peasants. 
What  did  she  do  ?     What  would  you  have  done  ?     Shut 


124    PRESENCE  OF  MIND,  AND  HAPPY  GCESSINl*. 

your  eyes  and  think.  She  went  straight  to  the  dog,  re- 
ceived its  head  in  her  thick  stuff  gown,  between  her 
knees,  and  muffling  it  up,  held  it  with  all  her  might  till 
the  men  came  up.  No  one  was  hurt.  Of  course,  she 
fainted  after  it  was  all  right. 

We  all  know  (but  why  should  we  not  know  again  ?)  the 
story  of  the  Grecian  mother  who  saw  her  child  sporting 
on  the  edge  of  the  bridge.  She  knew  that  a  cry  would 
startle  it  over  into  the  raging  stream  —  she  came  gently 
near,  and  opening  her  bosom  allured  the  little  scapegrace. 

I  once  saw  a  great  surgeon,  after  settling  a  particular 
procedure  as  to  a  life-and-death  operation,  as  a  general 
settles  his  order  of  battle.  He  began  his  work,  and  at 
the  second  cut  altered  the  entire  conduct  of  the  opera- 
tion. No  one  not  in  the  secret  could  have  told  this : 
not  a  moment's  pause,  not  a  quiver  of  the  face,  not  a 
look  of  doubt.  This  is  the  same  master  power  in  man, 
which  makes  the  difference  between  Sir  John  Moore  and 
Sir  John  Cope.   - 

Mrs.  Major  Robertson,  a  woman  of  slight  make,  great 
beauv ,  and  remarkable  energy,  courage,  and  sense  (she 
told  me  the  story  herself),  on  going  up  to  her  bedroom 
at  night  —  there  being  no  one  in  the  house  but  a  servant 
girl,  in  the  ground  floor  —  saw  a  portion  of  a  man's  foot 
projecting  from  under  the  bed.  She  gave  no  cry  of 
alarm,  but  shut  the  door  as  usual,  set  down  her  candle, 
and  began  as  if  to  undress,  when  she  said  aloud  to  her- 
self, with  an  impatient  tone  and  gesture,  "  I've  forgotten 
that  key  again,  I  declare  ; "  and  leaving  the  candle  burn- 
ing, and  the  door  open,  she  went  down-stairs,  got  the 
watchman,  and  secured  the  proprietor  of  the  foot,  which 
had  not  moved  an  inch.  How  many  women  or  men 
could  have  done,  or  rather  been  all  this  ! 


MY  FATHERS   MEMOIR. 


A  LETTER    TO   JOIIN    CAIRNS,   D.  D. 


"  /  praised  the  dead  which  are  already  dead,  mm-e  than  the  livinp 
which  are  yet  alive." 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR. 


LETTER    TO    JOHN    CAIRNS,    D.    D. 

23  Rutland  Steet,  15th  August,  1860. 
Y  dear  Friend,  —  When,  at  the  urgent 
request  of  his  trustees  and  family,  and  in 
||  accordance  with  what  I  believe  was  his  own 
wish,  you  undertook  my  father's  Memoir,  it 
was  in  a  measure  on  the  understanding  that  I  would 
furnish  you  with  some  domestic  and  personal  details. 
This  I  hoped  to  have  done  but  was   unable. 

Though  convinced  more  than  ever  how  little  my  hand 
is  needed,  I  will  now  endeavor  to  fulfil  my  promise. 
Before  doing  so,  however,  you  must  permit  me  to  ex- 
press our  deep  gratitude  to  you  for  this  crowning  proof 
of  your  regard  for  him 

"  Without  whose  life  we  had  not  been ;  " 

to  whom  for  many  years  you  habitually  wrote  as  "  My 
father,"  and  one  of  whose  best  blessings,  when  he  was 
"  such  an  one  as  Paul  the  aged,"  was  to  know  that  you 
were  to  him  "  mine  own  son  in  the  gospel." 

With  regard  to  the  manner  in  which  you  have  done 
this  last  kindness  to  the  dead,  T  can  say  nothing  more 
expressive  of  our  feelings,  and,  I  am  sure,  nothing  more 
gratifying  to  you,  than  that  the  record  you  have  given 
of  my  father's  life,  and  of  the  series  of  great  public  ques- 


128  MY   FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

tions  in  which  he  took  part,  is  done  in  the  way  which 
would  have  been  most  pleasing  to  himself  —  that  which, 
with  his  passionate  love  of  truth  and  liberty,  his  relish 
for  concentrated,  just  thought  and  expression,  and  his 
love  of  being  loved,  he  would  have  most  desired,  in  any 
one  speaking  of  him  after  he  was  gone.  He  would,  I 
doubt  not,  say,  as  one  said  to  a  great  painter,  on  looking 
at  his  portrait,  "  It  is  certainly  like,  but  it  is  much  bet- 
ter looking ; "  and  you  might  well  reply  as  did  the  paint- 
er, "It  is  the  truth,  told  lovingly"  —  and  all  the  more 
true  that  it  is  so  told.  You  have,  indeed,  been  enabled 
to  speak  the  truth,  or  as  the  Greek  has  it,  akriOevelv 
iv  ayaTrq  —  to  truth  it  in  love. 

I  have  over  and  over  again  sat  down  to  try  and  do 
what  I  promised  and  wished  —  to  give  some  faint  ex- 
pression of  my  father's  life ;  not  of  what  he  did  or  said 
or  wrote  —  not  even  of  what  he  was  as  a  man  of  God 
and  a  public  teacher ;  but  what  he  was  in  his  essen- 
tial nature  —  what  he  would  have  been  had  he  been 
anything  else  than  what  he  was,  or  had  lived  a  thou- 
sand years  ago. 

Sometimes  I  have  this  so  vividly  in  my  mind  that  I 
think  I  have  only  to  sit  down  and  write  it  off,  and  do  it 
to  the  quick.  "  The  idea  of  his  life,"  what  he  was  as  a 
whole,  what  was  his  self,  all  his  days,  would,  —  to  go  on 
with  words  which  not  time  or  custom  can  ever  wither 
or  make  stale,  — 

"  Sweetly  creep 
Into  my  study  of  imagination ; 
And  every  lovely  organ  of  his  life 
Would  come  apparelled  in  more  precious  habit  — 
More  moving  delicate,  and  full  of  life, 
Into  the  eye  and  prospect  of  my  soul, 
Than  when  he  lived  indeed," 


MY   FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  129 

as  if  the  sacredness  of  death  and  the  bloom  of  eternity 
were  on  it ;  or  as  you  may  have  seen  in  an  untroubled 
lake,  the  heaven  reflected  with  its  clouds,  brighter,  purer, 
more  exquisite  than  itself;  but  when  you  try  to  put  this 
into  words,  to  detain  yourself  over  it,  it  is  by  this  very 
act  disturbed,  broken  and  bedimmed,  and  soon  vanishes 
away,  as  would  the  imaged  heavens  in  the  lake,  if  a 
pebble  were  cast  into  it,  or  a  breath  of  wind  stirred  its 
face.  The  very  anxiety  to  transfer  it,  as  it  looked  out 
of  the  clear  darkness  of  the  past,  makes  the  image  grow 
dim  and  disappear. 

Every  one  whose  thoughts  are  not  seldom  with  the 
dead,  must  have  felt  both  these  conditions  ;  how,  in  cer- 
tain passive,  tranquil  states,  there  comes  up  into  the 
darkened  chamber  of  the  mind,  its  "  chamber  of  ima- 
gery "  —  uncalled,  as  if  it  blossomed  out  of  space,  exact, 
absolute,  consummate,  vivid,  speaking,  not  darkly  as  in 
a  glass,  but  face  to  face,  and  "  moving  delicate  "  —  this 
"  idea  of  his  life ; "  and  then  how  an  effort  to  prolong 
and  perpetuate  and  record  all  this,  troubles  the  vision 
and  kills  it !  It  is  as  if  one  should  try  to  paint  in  a 
mirror  the  reflection  of  a  dear  and  unseen  face ;  the 
coarse,  uncertain  passionate  handling  and  color,  iref 
fectual  and  hopeless,  shut  out  the  very  thing  itself. 

I  will  therefore  give  this  up  as  in  vain,  and  try  by 
Borne  fragmentary  sketches,  scenes,  and  anecdotes,  to  let 
you  know  in  some  measure  what  manner  of  man  my 
father  was.  Anecdotes,  if  true  and  alive,  are  always 
valuable ;  the  man  in  the  concrete,  the  totus  quis  comes 
out  in  them  ;  and  I  know  you  too  well  to  think  that  you 
will  consider  as  trivial  or  out  of  place  anything  in  which 
his  real  nature  displayed  itself,  and  your  own  sense  of 
humor  as  a  master  and  central  power  of  the  human  soul, 
9 


130  MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR. 

playing  about  the  very  essence  of  the  man,  will  do  more 
than  forgive  anything  of  this  kind  which  may  crop  out 
here  and  there,  like  the  smile  of  wild-flowers  in  grass, 
or  by  the  wayside. 

My  first  recollection  of  my  father,  my  first  impression, 
not  only  of  his  character,  but  of  his  eyes  and  face  and 
presence,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  dates  from  my  fifth 
year.  Doubtless  I  had  looked  at  him  often  enough  be- 
fore that,  and  had  my  own  childish  thoughts  about  him  ; 
but  this  was  the  time  when  I  got  my  fixed,  compact  idea 
of  him,  and  the  first  look  of  him  which  I  felt  could  never 
be  forgotten.  I  saw  him,  as  it  were,  by  a  flash  of  light- 
ning, sudden  and  complete.  A  child  begins  by  seeing 
bits  of  everything  ;  it  knows  in  part  —  here  a  little,  there 
a  little ;  it  rnakes  up  its  wholes  out  of  its  own  littles,  and 
is  long  of  reaching  the  fulness  of  a  whole ;  and  in  this 
we  are  children  all  our  lives  in  much.  Children  are 
long  of  seeing,  or  at  least  of  looking  at  what  is  above 
them ;  they  like  the  ground,  and  its  flowers  and  stones, 
its  "  red  sodgers "  and  lady-birds,  and  all  its  queer 
things  ;  their  world  is  about  three  feet  high,  and  they 
are  more  often  stooping  than  gazing  up.  I  know  I  was 
past  ten  before  I  saw,  or  cared  to  see,  the  ceilings  of  the 
rooms  in  the  manse  at  Biggar. 

On  the  morning  of  the  28th  May,  1816,  my  eldest 
sister  Janet  and  I  were  sleeping  in  the  kitchen-bed  with 
Tibbie   Meek,1   our   only  servant.     "We   were  all  three 

1  A  year  ago,  I  found  an  elderly  countrywoman,  a  widow,  waiting 
for  me.  Rising  up,  she  said,  "D'ye  mind  me?"  I  looked  at  her, 
but  could  get  nothing  from  her  face;  but  the  voice  remained  in  my 
ear,  as  if  coming  from  "  the  fields  of  sleep,"  and  I  said  by  a  sort  of 
instinct,  "Tibbie  Meek!  "  I  had  not  seen  her  or  heard  her  voice  fof 
more  than  forty  years.  She  had  come  to  get  some  medical  advice 
Voices  are  often  like  the  smells  of  flowers  and  leaves,  the  tastes  of 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  131 

awakened  by  a  cry  of  pain  —  sharp,  insufferable,  as  if 
one  were  stung.  Years  after  we  two  confided  to  each 
other,  sitting  by  the  burnside,  that  we  thought  that 
"  great  cry "  which  arose  at  midnight  in  Egypt  must 
have  been  like  it.  We  all  knew  whose  voice  it  was, 
and,  in  our  night-clothes,  we  ran  into  the  passage,  and 
into  the  little  parlor  to  the  left  hand,  in  which  was  a 
closet-bed.  We  found  my  father  standing  before  us, 
erect,  his  hands  clenched  in  his  black  hair,  his  eyes  full 
of  misery  and  amazement,  his  face  white  as  that  of  the 
dead.  He  frightened  us.  He  saw  this,  or  else  his  in- 
tense will  had  mastered  his  agony,  for,  taking  his  hands 
from  his  head,  he  said,  slowly  and  gently,  "  Let  us  give 
thanks,"  and  turned  to  a  little  sofa  in  the  room ;  there 
lay  our  mother,  dead.1  She  had  long  been  ailing.  I 
remember  her  sitting  in  a  shawl,  —  an  Indian  one  with 
little  dark  green  spots  on  a  light  ground,  —  and  watch- 
ing her  growing  pale  with  what  I  afterwards  knew  must 
have  been  strong  pain.  She  had,  being  feverish,  slipped 
out  of  bed,  and  "  grandmother,"  her  mother,  seeing  her 
"  change  come,"  had  called  my  father,  and  they  two  saw 
her  open  her  blue,  kind,  and  true  eyes,  "  comfortable  " 
to  us  all  "  as  the  day  "  —  I  remember  them  better  than 
those  of  any  one  I  saw  yesterday  —  and,  with  one  faint 
look  of  recognition  to  him,  close  them  till  the  time  of 
the  restitution  of  all  things. 

"  She  had  another  morn  than  ours." 

Then   were   seen   in  full   action  his  keen,   passionate 

■wild  fruits  —  they  touch  and   awaken   memory   in   a  strange  way. 
"  Tibbie  "  is  now  living  at  Thankerton. 

1  This  sofa,  which  was  henceforward  sacred  in  the  house,  he  had  al- 
ways beside  him.  He  used  to  tell  us  he  set  her  down  upon  it  when 
he  brought  her  home  to  the  manse. 


132  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

nature,  his  sense  of  mental  pain,  and  his  supreme  will, 
instant  and  unsparing,  making  himself  and  his  terrified 
household  give  thanks  in  the  midst  of  such  a  desolation, 
—  and  for  it.  Her  warfare  was  accomplished,  her  in- 
iquities were  pardoned :  she  had  already  received  from 
her  Lord's  hand  double  for  all  her  sins ;  this  was  his 
supreme  and  over-mastering  thought,  and  he  gave  it 
utterance. 

No  man  was  happier  in  his  wives.  My  mother  was 
modest,  calm,  thrifty,  reasonable,  tender,  happy-hearted. 
She  was  his  student-love,  and  is  even  now  remembered 
in  that  pastoral  region,  for  "  her  sweet  gentleness  and 
wife-like  government."  Her  death  and  his  sorrow  and 
loss,  settled  down  deep  into  the  heart  of  the  countryside. 
He  was  so  young  and  bright,  so  full  of  fire,  so  unlike 
any  one  else,  so  devoted  to  his  work,  so  chivalrous  in  his 
look  and  manner,  so  fearless,  and  yet  so  sensitive  and 
self-contained.  She  was  so  wise,  good  and  gentle,  gra- 
cious and  frank. 

His  subtlety  of  affection,  and  his  almost  cruel  self- 
command,  were  shown  on  the  day  of  the  funeral.  It 
was  to  Symington,  four  miles  off,  —  a  quiet  little  church- 
yard, lying  in  the  shadow  of  Tinto  ;  a  place  where  she 
herself  had  wished  to  be  laid.  The  funeral  was  chiefly 
on  horseback.  We,  the  family,  were  in  coaches.  I  had 
been  since  the  death  in  a  sort  of  stupid  musing  and 
wonder,  not  making  out  what  it  all  meant.  I  knew  my 
mother  was  said  to  be  dead.  I  saw  she  was  still,  and 
laid  out,  and  then  shut  up,  and  didn't  move ;  but  I  did 
not  know  that  when  she  was  carried  out  in  that  long 
black  box,  and  we  all  went  with  her,  she  alone  was 
never  to  return. 

When  we  got  to  the  village  all  the  people  were  at  their 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  133 

doors.  One  woman,  the  blacksmith  Thomas  Spence's 
wife,  had  a  nursing  baby  in  her  arms,  and  he  leapt  up 
and  crowed  with  joy  at  the  strange  sight,  the  crowding 
horsemen,  the  coaches,  and  the  nodding  plumes  of  the 
hearse.  This  was  my  brother  William,  then  nine  months 
old,  and  Margaret  Spence  was  his  foster-mother.  Those 
with  me  were  overcome  at  this  sight ;  he  of  all  the  world 
whose,  in  some  ways,  was  the  greatest  loss,  the  least  con- 
scious, turning  it  to  his  own  childish  glee. 

"We  got  to  the  churchyard  and  stood  round  the  open 
grave.  My  dear  old  grandfather  was  asked  by  my  father 
to  pray ;  he  did.  I  don't  remember  his  words  ;  I  be- 
lieve he,  through  his  tears  and  sobs,  repeated  the  Divine 
words,  "All  flesh  is  grass,  and  all  the  glory  of  man  as 
the  flower  of  the  grass  ;  the  grass  withereth,  and  the 
flower  thereof  falleth  away,  but  the  word  of  the  Lord 
endureth  forever ; "  adding,  in  his  homely  and  pathetic 
way,  that  the  flower  would  again  bloom,  never  again  to 
fade ;  that  what  was  now  sown  in  dishonor  and  weakness, 
would  be  raised  in  glory  and  power,  like  unto  His  own 
glorious  body.  Then  to  my  surprise  and  alarm,  the  cof- 
fin, resting  on  its  bearers,  was  placed  over  that  dark  hole, 
and  I  watched  with  curious  eye  the  unrolling  of  those 
neat  black  bunches  of  cords,  which  I  have  often  enough 
seen  since.  My  father  took  the  one  at  the  head,  and 
also  another  much  smaller  springing  from  the  same  point 
as  his,  which  he  had  caused  to  be  put  there,  and  unroll- 
ing it,  put  it  into  my  hand.  I  twisted  it  firmly  round  my 
fingers,  and  awaited  the  result ;  the  burial  men  with  their 
real  ropes  lowered  the  coffin,  and  when  it  rested  at  the 
bottom,  it  was  too  far  down  for  me  to  see  it  —  the  grave 
was  made  very  deep,  as  he  used  afterwards  to  tell  us, 
that  it  might  hold  us  all  —  my  father  first  and  abruptly 


134  MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR. 

let  his  cord  drop,  followed  by  the  rest.  This  was  too 
much.  I  now  saw  what  was  meant,  and  held  on  and 
fixed  my  fist  and  feet,  and  I  believe  my  father  had  some 
difficulty  in  forcing  open  my  small  fingers ;  he  let  the 
little  black  cord  drop,  and  I  remember,  in  my  misery  and 
anger,  seeing  its  open  end  disappearing  in  the  gloom. 

My  mother's  death  was  the  second  epoch  in  my  father's 
life  ;  it  marked  a  change  at  once  and  for  life  ;  and  for  a 
man  so  self-reliant,  so  poised  upon  a  centre  of  his  own, 
it  is  wonderful  the  extent  of  change  it  made.  He  went 
home,  preached  her  funeral  sermon,  every  one  in  the 
church  in  tears,  himself  outwardly  unmoved.1  But  from 
that  time  dates  an  entire,  though  always  deepening, 
alteration  in  his  manner  of  preaching,  because  an  entire 
change  in  his  way  of  dealing  with  God's  Word.  Not 
that  his  abiding  religious  views  and  convictions  were 
then  originated  or  even  altered  —  I  doubt  not  that  from 
a  child  he  not  only  knew  the  Holy  Scriptures,  but  was 
"  wise  unto  salvation  "  —  but  it  strengthened  and  clari- 
fied, quickened  and  gave  permanent  direction  to,  his 
sense  of  God  as  revealed  in  His  Word.  He  took  as  it 
were  to  subsoil  ploughing  ;  he  got  a  new  and  adamantine 
point  to  the  instrument  with  which  he  bored,  and  with  a 
fresh  power  —  with  his  whole  might,  he  sunk  it  right 
down  into  the  living  rock,  to  the  virgin  gold.  His  entire 
nature  had  got  a  shock,  and  his  blood  was  drawn  in- 
wards, his  surface  was  chilled  ;  but  fuel  was  heaped  all 
the  more  on  the  inner  fires,  and  his  zeal,  that  tl  Oep/xov 
Trfjayfxa,  burned  with  a  new  ardor ;  indeed  had  he  not 
found  an  outlet  for  his  pent-up  energy,  his  brain  must 
have  given  way,  and  his  faculties  have  either  consumed 

1 1  have  been  told  that  once  in  the  course  of  the  sermon  his  voice 
trembled,  and  many  feared  he  was  about  to  break  down. 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  135 

themselves  in  wild,  wasteful  splendor  and  combustion,  or 
dwindled  into  lethargy.1 

The  manse  became  silent ;  we  lived  and  slept  and 
played  under  the  shadow  of  that  death,  and  we  saw,  or 
rather  felt,  that  he  was  another  father  than  before.  No 
more  happy  laughter  from  the  two  in  the  parlor,  as  he 
was  reading  Larry,  the  Irish  postboy's  letter  in  Miss 
Edgeworth's  tale,  or  the  last  Waverley  novel ;  no  more 
visitings  in  a  cart  with  her,  he  riding  beside  us  on  his 
white  thorough-bred  pony,  to  Kilbucho,  or  Rachan  Mill, 
or  Kirklawhill.  He  went  among  his  people  as  usual 
when  they  were  ill ;  he  preached  better  than  ever  — 
they  were  sometimes  frightened  to  think  how  wonder- 
fully he  preached ;  but  the  sunshine  was  over  —  the 
glad  and  careless  look,  the  joy  of  young  life  and  mutual 
love.  He  was  little  with  us,  and,  as  I  said,  the  house 
was  still,  except  when  he  was  mandating  his  sermons  for 
Sabbath.  This  he  always  did,  not  only  viva  voce,  but 
with  as  much  energy  and  loudness  as  in  the  pulpit ;  we 
felt  his  voice  was  sharper,  and  rang  keen  through  the 
house. 

What  we  lost,  the  congregation  and  the  world  gained. 
He  gave  himself  wholly  to  his  work.  As  you  have 
yourself  said,  he  changed  his  entire  system  and  fashion 
of  preaching ;  from  being  elegant,  rhetorical,  and  am- 
bitious, he  became  concentrated,  urgent,  moving  (being 
himself  moved),  keen,  searching,  unswerving,  authorita- 

1  There  is  a  story  illustrative  of  this  altered  manner  and  matter  of 
preaching.  He  had  been  preaching  when  very  young,  at  Galashiels 
and  one  wife  said  to  her  "neebor,"  "Jean,  what  think  ye  o'  the  lad'?" 
' It's  maist  o't  tinsel  mark"  said  Jean,  neither  relishing  nor  appreciat- 
ing his  fine  sentiments  and  figures.  After  my  mother's  death,  he 
preached  in  the  same  place,  and  Jean,  running  to  her  friend,  took 
the  first  word,  '  IV  t  a1  gowd  noo." 


136  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

tive  to  fierceness,  full  of  the  terrors  of  the  Lord,  if  he 
could  but  persuade  men.  The  truth  of  the  words  of 
God  had  shone  out  upon  him  with  an  iminediateness 
and  infinity  of  meaning  and  power,  which  made  them, 
though  the  same  words  he  had  looked  on  from  child- 
hood, other  and  greater  and  deeper  words.  He  then  left 
the  ordinary  commentators,  and  men  who  write  about 
meanings  and  flutter  around  the  circumference  and  cor- 
ners ;  he  was  bent  on  the  centre,  on  touching  with  his 
own  fingers,  on  seeing  with  his  own  eyes,  the  pearl  of 
great  price.  Then  it  was  that  he  began  to  dig  into  the 
depths,  into  the  primary  and  auriferous  rock,  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  take  nothing  at  another's  hand :  then  he  took 
up  with  the  word  "  apprehend  ; "  he  had  laid  hold  of  the 
truth,  —  there  it  was,  with  its  evidence,  in  his  hand ; 
and  every  one  who  knew  him  must  remember  well  how, 
in  speaking  with  earnestness  of  the  meaning  of  a  passage, 
he,  in  his  ardent,  hesitating  way,  looked  into  the  palm  of 
his  hand  as  if  he  actually  saw  there  the  truth  he  was 
going  to  utter.  This  word  apprehend  played  a  large 
part  in  his  lectures,  as  the  thing  itself  did  in  his  pro- 
cesses of  investigation,  or,  if  I  might  make  a  word,  in- 
digation.  Comprehension,  he  said,  was  for  few ;  ap- 
prehension was  for  every  man  who  had  hands  and  a 
head  to  rule  them,  and  an  eye  to  direct  them.  Out  of 
this  arose  one  of  his  deficiencies.  He  could  go  largely 
into  the  generalities  of  a  subject,  and  relished  greatly 
others  doing  it,  so  that  tbey  did  do  it  really  and  well ; 
but  he  was  averse  to  abstract  and  wide  reasonings. 
Principles  he  rejoiced  in  :  he  worked  with  them  as  with 
his  choicest  weapons ;  they  were  the  polished  stones  for 
his  sling,  against  the  Goliaths  of  presumption,  error,  and 
tyranny  in   thought  or  in   polity,  civil  or  ecclesiastical ; 


MY   FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  137 

but  he  somehow  divined  a  principle,  or  got  at  it  naked 
and  alone,  rather  than  deduced  it  and  brought  it  to  a 
point  from  an  immensity  of  particulars,  and  then  ren- 
dered it  back  so  as  to  bind  them  into  one  cosmos.  One 
of  my  young  friends  now  dead,  who  afterwards  went  to 
India,  used  to  come  and  hear  him  in  Bi*oughton  Place 
with  me,  and  this  word  apprehend  caught  him,  and  as  he 
had  a  great  love  for  my  father,  in  writing  home  to  me. 
he  never  forgot  to  ask  how  "grand  old  Apprehend 
was. 

From  this  time  dates  my  father's  possession  and  use 
of  the  German  Exegetics.  After  my  mother's  death  I 
slept  with  him  ;  his  bed  was  in  his  study,  a  small  room,1 
with  a  very  small  grate  ;  and  I  remember  well  his  get- 
ting those  fat,  shapeless,  spongy  German  books,  as  if  one 
would  sink  in  them,  and  be  bogged  in  their  bibulous, 
unsized  paper  ;  and  watching  him  as  he  impatiently  cut 
them  up,  and  dived  into  them  in  his  rapid,  eclectic  way, 
tasting  them,  and  dropping  for  my  play  such  a  lot  of  soft, 
large,  curled  bits  from  the  paper-cutter,  leaving  the  edges 
all  shaggy.  He  never  came  to  bed  when  I  was  awake, 
which  was  not  to  be  wondered  at ;  but  I  can  remember 
often  awaking  far  on  in  the  night  or  morning,  and  see- 
ing that  keen,  beautiful,  intense  face  bending  over  these 
Rosenmullers,  and  Ernestis,  and  Storrs,  and  Kuinoels  — 
the  fire  out,  and  the  gray  dawn  peering  through  the 
window  ;  and  when  he  heard  me  move,  he  would  speak 
to  me  in  the  foolish  words  of  endearment  my  mother  was 
wont  to  use,  and  come  to  bed,  and  take  me,  warm  as  I 
was,  into  his  cold  bosom. 

1  On  a  low  chest  of  drawers  in  this  room  there  lay  for  many  j'ears 
my  mother's  parasol,  by  his  orders  —  I  daresay,  for  long,  the  only  one 
in  Biggar. 


138  MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR. 

Vitringa  in  Jesaiam  I  especially  remember,  a  noble 
folio.  Even  then,  with  that  eagerness  to  communicate 
what  he  had  himself  found,  of  which  you  must  often 
have  been  made  the  subject,  he  went  and  told  it.  He 
would  try  to  make  me,  small  man  as  I  was,  "  appre- 
hend "  what  he  and  Vitringa  between  them  had  made 
out  of  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  his  favorite  prophet, 
the  princely  Isaiah.1  Even  then,  so  far  as  I  can  recall, 
he  never  took  notes  of  what  he  read.  He  did  not  need 
this,  his  intellectual  force  and  clearness  were  so  great ; 
he  was  so  totus    in   illo,  whatever   it  was,  that  he  re- 

1  His  reading  aloud  of  everything  from  John  Gilpin  to  John  Howe 
was  a  fine  and  high  art,  or  rather  gift.  Henderson  could  not  have 
given 

"  The  dinner  waits,  and  we  are  tired  ; " 
Says  Gilpin,  "  So  am  I," 

better;  and  to  hear  him  sounding  the  depths  and  cadences  of  the  Liv- 
ing Temple,  "  bearing  on  its  front  this  doleful  inscription,  '  Here  God 
once  dwelt,'  "  was  like  listening  to  the  recitative  of  Handel.  But 
Isaiah  was  his  masterpiece  ;  and  I  remember  quite  well  his  startling 
us  all  when  reading  at  family  worship,  "  His  name  shall  be  called  Won- 
derful, Counsellor,  the  mighty  God,"  by  a  peremptory,  explosive 
sharpness,  as  of  thunder  overhead,  at  the  words  "  the  mighty  God," 
similar  to  the  rendering  now  given  to  Handel's  music,  and  doubtless 
so  meant  by  him ;  and  then  closing  with  "  the  Prince  of  Peace,  soft 
and  low.  No  man  who  wishes  to  feel  Isaiah,  as  well  as  understand 
him,  should  be  ignorant  of  Handel's  "  Messiah."  His  prelude  to 
"  Comfort  ye  "  —  its  simple  theme,  cheerful  and  infinite  as  the  ripple 
of  the  unsearchable  sea —  gives  a  deeper  meaning  to  the  words.  One 
of  my  father's  great  delights  in  his  dying  months  was  reading  the 
lives  of  Handel  and  of  Michael  Angelo,  then  newly  out.  He  felt  tha 
the  author  of  "  He  was  despised,"  and  "  He  shall  feed  his  flock,"  and 
those  other  wonderful  airs,  was  a  man  of  profound  religious  feeling, 
of  which  they  were  the  utterance ;  and  he  rejoiced  over  the  warlike 
airs  and  choruses  of  "  Judas  Maccabajus."  You  have  recorded  his 
estimate  of  the  religious  nature  of  him  of  the  terribile  via;  he  said  it 
was  a  relief  to  his  mind  to  know  that  such  a  mighty  genius  walked 
humblv  with  his  God. 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  139 

corded  by  a  secret  of  its  own,  his  mind's  results  and  vic- 
tories and  memoranda,  as  he  went  on ;  he  did  not  even 
mark  his  books,  at  least  very  seldom  ;  he  marked  his 
mind. 

He  was  thus  every  year  preaching  with  more  and 
more  power,  because  with  more  and  more  knowledge 
and  "  pureness  ; "  and,  as  you  say,  there  were  probably 
nowhere  in  Britain  such  lectures  delivered  at  that  time 
to  such  an  audience,  consisting  of  country  people,  sound, 
devout,  well-read  in  their  Bibles  and  in  the  native  di- 
vinity, but  quite  unused  to  persistent,  deep,  critical 
thought. 

Much  of  this  —  most  of  it  —  was  entirely  his  own, 

self-originated  and  self-sustained,  and  done  for  its  own 

sake, 

"  All  too  happy  in  the  pleasure 
Of  his  own  exceeding  treasure." 

But  he  often  said,  with  deep  feeling,  that  one  thing  put 
him  always  on  his  mettle,  the  knowledge  that  "  yonder 
in  that  corner,  under  the  gallery,  sat,  Sabbath  after  Sab- 
bath, a  man  who  knew  his  Greek  Testament  better  than 
I  did." 

This  was  his  brother-in-law,  and  one  of  his  elders, 
Mr.  Robert  Johnston,  married  to  his  sister  Violet,  a 
merchant  and  portioner  in  Biggar,  a  remarkable  man, 
of  whom  it  is  difficult  to  say  to  strangers  what  is  true, 
without  being  accused  of  exaggeration.  A  shopkeeper 
in  that  remote  little  town,  he  not  only  intermeddled 
fearlessly  with  all  knowledge,  but  mastered  more  than 
many  practised  and  University  men  do  in  their  own 
lines.  Mathematics,  astronomy,  and  especially  what 
may  be  called  selenology,  or  the  doctrine  of  the  moon, 
and  the  higher  geometry  and  physics ;  Hebrew,  Sanscrit, 


140  MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR. 

Greek,  and  Latin,  to  the  veriest  rigors  of  prosody  and 
metre ;  Spanish  and  Italian,  German,  French,  and  any 
odd  language  that  came  in  his  way ;  all  these  he  knew 
more  or  less  thoroughly,  and  acquired  them  in  the  most 
leisurely,  easy,  cool  sort  of  way,  as  if  he  grazed  and 
browsed  perpetually  in  the  field  of  letters,  rather  than 
made  formal  meals,  or  gathered  for  any  ulterior  purpose, 
his  fruits,  his  roots,  and  his  nuts  —  he  especially  liked 
mental  nuts  —  much  less  bought  them  from  any  one. 

With  all  this,  his  knowledge  of  human,  and  espec- 
ially of  Biggar  human  nature,  the  ins  and  outs  of  its 
little  secret  ongoings,  the  entire  gossip  of  the  place,  was 
like  a  woman's ;  moreover,  every  personage  great  or 
small,  heroic  or  comic,  in  Homer  —  whose  poems  he 
made  it  a  matter  of  conscience  to  read  once  every  four 
years  —  Plautus,  Suetonius,  Plutarch,  Tacitus,  and  Lu- 
cian,  down  through  Boccaccio  and  Don  Quixote,  which 
he  knew  by  heart  and  from  the  living  Spanish,  to  Jo- 
seph Andrews,  the  Spectator,  Goldsmith  and  Swift,  Miss 
Austen,  Miss  Edgeworth,  and  Miss  Ferrier,  Gait  and 
Sir  Walter,  —  he  was  as  familiar  with,  as  with  David 
Crockat  the  nailer,  or  the  parish  minister,  the  town- 
drummer,  the  mole-catcher,  or  the  poaching  weaver,  who 
had  the  night  before  leistered  a  prime  kipper  at  Radian 
Mill,  by  the  flare  of  a  tarry  wisp,  or  brought  home  his 
surreptitious  gray  hen  or  mauhin  from  the  wilds  of 
Dunsj're  or  the  dreary  Lang  Whang.1 

This  singular  man  came  to  the  manse  every  Friday 
evening  for  many  years,  and  he  and  my  father  dis- 
cussed everything  and  everybody  ;  —  beginning  with 
tough,  strong  head  work  —  a  bout  at    wrestling,  be  it 

1  With  the  practices  of  this  last  worthy,  when  carried  on  moder- 
ately, and  for  the  sport's  sake,  he  had  a  special  sympathy. 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  141 

Caesar's  Bridge,  the  Epistles  of  Phalaris,  the  import  of  ^o- 
and  Se,  the  Catholic  question,  or  the  great  roots  of  Chris- 
tian faith  ;  ending  with  the  latest  joke  in  the  town  or  the 
West  Haw,  the  last  effusion  by  Affleck,  tailor  and  poet, 
the  last  blunder  of  iEsop  the  apothecary,  and  the  last 
repartee  of  the  village  fool,  with  the  week's  Edinburgh 
and  Glasgow  news  by  their  respective  carriers ;  the 
whole  little  life,  sad  and  humorous  —  who  had  been 
born,  and  who  was  dying  or  dead,  married  or  about  to 
be,  for  the  past  eight  days.1 

This  amused,  and,  in  the  true  sense,  diverted  my 
father,  and  gratified  his  curiosity,  which  was  great,  and 
his  love  of  men,  as  well  as  for  man.  He  was  shy,  and 
unwilling  to  ask  what  he  longed  to  know,  liking  better 
to  have  it  given  him  without  the  asking ;  and  no  one 
could  do  this  better  than  "  Uncle  Johnston." 

You  may  readily  understand  what  a  thorough  exer- 
cise and  diversion  of  an  intellectual  and  social  kind  this 
was,  for  they  were  neither  of  them  men  to  shirk  from 
close  gripes,  or  trifle  and  flourish  with  their  weapons; 
they  laid  on  and  spared  not.  And  then  my  uncle  had 
generally  some  special  nut  of  his  own  to  crack,  some 
thesis  to  fling  down  and  offer  battle  on,  some  "  particle  " 
to  energize  upon  ;  for  though  quiet  and  calm,  he  was 
thoroughly  combative,  and  enjoyed  seeing  his  friend's 
blood  up,  and  hearing  his  emphatic  and  bright  speech, 
and  watching  his  flashing  eye.     Then  he  never  spared 

1 1  believe  this  was  the  true  though  secret  source  of  much  of  my 
father's  knowledge  of  the  minute  personal  history  of  every  one  in  his 
region,  which,  —  to  his  people,  knowing  his  reserved  manner  and  his 
devotion  to  his  studies,  and  his  so  rarely  meeting  them  or  speaking  to 
them  except  from  the  pulpit,  or  at  a  diet  of  visitation,  was  a  perpetual 
wonder,  and  of  which  he  made  great  use  in  his  dealings  with  his 
afflicted  or  erring  "  members." 


i 
142  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

him  ;  criticized  and  sometimes  quizzed  —  for  he  had  great 
humor  —  his  style,  as  well  as  debated  and  weighed  his 
apprehendings  and  exegeses,  shaking  them  heartily  to 
test  their  strength.  He  was  so  thoroughly  independent 
of  all  authority,  except  that  of  reason  and  truth,  and 
his  own  humor ;  so  ready  to  detect  what  was  weak,  ex- 
travagant, or  unfair ;  so  full  of  relish  for  intellectual 
power  and  accuracy,  and  so  attached  to  and  proud  of 
my  father,  and  bent  on  his  making  the  best  of  himself, 
that  this  trial  was  never  relaxed.  His  firm  and  close- 
grained  mind  was  a  sort  of  whetstone  on  which  my  father 
sharpened  his  wits  at  this  weekly  "  setting." 

The  very  difference  of  their  mental  tempers  and  com- 
plexions drew  them  together  —  the  one  impatient,  ner- 
vous, earnest,  instant,  swift,  vehement,  regardless  of  ex- 
ertion, bent  on  his  goal,  like  a  thorough-bred  racer, 
pressing  to  the  mark  ;  the  other  leisurely  to  slowness 
and  provokingness,  with  a  constitution  which  could  stand 
a  great  deal  of  ^ease,  unimpassioned,  still,  clear,  untroub- 
led by  likings  or  dislikings,  dwelling  and  working  in 
thought  and  speculation  and  observation  as  ends  in 
themselves,  and  as  their  own  rewards : l   the  one  hunt- 

1  He  was  curiously  destitute  of  all  literary  ambition  or  show ;  like 
the  cactus  in  the  desert,  always  plump,  always  taking  in  the  dew  of 
heaven,  and  caring  little  to  give  it  out.  He  wrote  man}'  papers  in  the 
Repository  and  Monitor,  an  acute  and  clever  tract  on  the  Voluntary 
controversy,  entitled  Calm  Answers  to  Angry  Questions,  and  was  the 
author  of  a  capital  bit  of  literary  banter  —  a  Congratulatory  Letter  to 
the  Minister  of  Liberton,  who  had  come  down  upon  my  father  in  a 
pamphlet,  for  his  sermon  on  "  There  remaineth  much  land  to  be  pos- 
sessed." It  is  a  mixture  of  Swift  and  Arbuthnot.  I  remember  one 
of  the  flowers  he  culls  from  him  he  is  congratulating,  in  which  my 
father  is  characterized  as  one  of  those  "  shallow,  sallow  souls  that 
would  swallow  the  bait,  without  perceiving  the  cloven  foot!"  But 
a  man  like  thi3  ieve>r  is  best  in  a  book;  he  is  always  greater  than  his 
work. 


MY   FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  143 

ing  for  a  principle  or  a  "  divine  method  ;  "  the  other  sap- 
ping or  shelling  from  a  distance,  and  for  his  pleasure, 
a  position,  or  gaining  a  point,  or  settling  a  rule,  or  ver- 
ifying a  problem,  or  getting  axiomatic  and  proverbial. 

In  appearance  they  were  as  curiously  unlike ;  my 
uncle  short  and  round  to  rotundity,  homely  and  florid 
in  feature.  I  used  to  think  Socrates  must  have  been 
like  him  in  visage  as  well  as  in  much  of  his  mind.  He 
was  careless  in  his  dress,  his  hands  in  his  pockets  as  a 
rule,  and  strenuous  only  in  smoking  or  in  sleep  ;  with  a 
large,  full  skull,  a  humorous  twinkle  in  his  cold,  blue 
eye,  a  soft,  low  voice,  expressing  every  kind  of  thought  in 
the  same,  sometimes  plaguily  douce  tone  ;  a  great  power 
of  quiet  and  telling  sarcasm,  large  capacity  of  listening 
to  and  of  enjoying  other  men's  talk,  however  small. 

My  father  —  tall,  slim,  agile,  quick  in  his  movements, 
graceful,  neat  to  nicety  in  his  dress,  with  much  in  his 
air  of  what  is  called  style,  with  a  face  almost  too  beauti- 
ful for  a  man's,  had  not  his  eyes  commanded  it  and 
all  who  looked  at  it,  and  his  close,  firm  mouth  been 
ready  to  say  what  the  fiery  spirit  might  bid ;  his  eyes, 
when  at  rest,  expressing  —  more  than  almost  any  other's 
I  ever  saw  —  sorrow  and  tender  love,  a  desire  to  give 
and  to  get  sympathy,  and  a  sort  of  gentle,  deep  sadness, 
as  if  that  was  their  permanent  state,  and  gladness  their 
momentary  act ;  but  when  awakened,  full  of  fire,  per- 
emptory, and  not  to  be  trifled  with ;  and  his  smile,  and 
flash  of  gayety  and  fun,  something  no  one  could  forget ; 
his  hair  in  early  life  a  dead  black  ;  his  eyebrows  of  ex- 
quisite curve,  narrow  and  intense  ;  his  voice  deep  when 
unmoved  and  calm;  keen  and  sharp  to  piercing  fierce- 
ness when  vehement  and  roused  —  in  the  pulpit,  at  times 
a  shout,  at  times  a  pathetic  wail ;  his  utterance  hesitat- 


144  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

ing,  emphatic,  explosive,  powerful,  —  each  sentence  shot 
straight  and  home  ;  his  hesitation  arising  from  his  crowd 
of  impatient  ideas,  and  his  resolute  will  that  they  should 
come  in  their  order,  and  some  of  them  not  come  at  all, 
only  the  best,  and  his  settled  determination  that  each 
thought  should  be  dressed  in  the  very  and  only  word 
which  he  stammered  on  till  it  came,  —  it  was  generally 
worth  his  pains  and  ours. 

Uncle  Johnston,  again,  flowed  on  like  Cassar's  Avar, 
mcredibili  lenitate,  or  like  linseed  out  of  a  poke.  You 
can  easily  fancy  the  spiritual  and  bodily  contrast  of 
these  men,  and  can  fancy  too,  the  kind  of  engagements 
they  would  have  with  their  own  proper  weapons  on 
these  Friday  evenings,  in  the  old  manse  dining-room, 
my  father  showing  uncle  out  into  the  darkness  of  the 
back-road,  and  uncle,  doubtless,  lighting  his  black  and 
ruminative  pipe. 

If  my  uncle  brought  up  nuts  to  crack,  my  father  was 
sure  to  have  some  difficulties  to  consult  about,  or  some 
passages  to  read,  something  that  made  him  put  his  whole 
energy  forth  ;  and  when  he  did  so,  I  never  heard  such 
reading.  To  hear  him  read  the  story  of  Joseph,  or 
passages  in  David's  history,  and  Psalms  6th,  11th,  and 
15th,  or  the  52d,  53d,  54th,  55th,  63d,  64th,  and  40th 
chapters  of  Isaiah,  or  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or 
the  Journey  to  Emmaus,  or  our  Saviour's  prayer  in 
John,  or  Paul's  speech  on  Mars'  Hill,  or  the  first  three 
chapters  of  Hebrews  and  the  latter  part  of  the  11th 
or  Job,  or  the  Apocalypse ;  or,  to  pass  from  those  divine 
themes  —  Jeremy  Taylor,  or  George  Herbert,  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  or  Milton's  prose,  such  as  the  passage  beginning 
"  Come  forth  out  of  thy  royal  chambers,  0  thou  Prince 
of   all  the   kings   of   the   earth  \ "  and  "  Truth,  indeed, 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  145 

came  once  into  the  world  with  her  divine  Master,"  or 
Charles  Wesley's  Hymns,  or,  most  loved  of  all,  Cowper, 
from  the  rapt  "  Come  thou,  and,  added  to  thy  many 
crowns,"  or  "  0  that  those  lips  had  language  ! "  to  the 
Jackdaw,  and  his  incomparable  Letters ;  or  Gray's  Po- 
ems, Burns's  "  Tarn  O'Shanter,"  or  Sir  Walter's  "  Eve 
of  St.  John,"  »  and  "  The  Gray  Brother." 

But  I  beg  your  pardon  :  Time  has  run  back  with  me, 
and  fetched  that  blessed  past,  and  awakened  its  echoes. 
I  hear  his  voice  ;  I  feel  his  eye  ;  I  see  his  whole  nature 
given  up  to  what  he  is  reading,  and  making  its  very  soul 
speak. 

Such  a  man  then  as  I  have  sketched,  or  washed  faintly 
in,  as  the  painters  say,  was  that  person  who  sat  in  the 
corner  under  the  gallery  every  Sabbath-day,  and  who 
knew  his  Greek  Testament  better  than  his  minister.  He 
is  dead  too,  a  few  months  ago,  dying  surrounded  with 
his  cherished  hoard  of  books  of  all  sizes,  times,  and 
tongues  —  tatterdemalion  many  ;  all  however  drawn  up 
in  an  order  of  his  own  ;  all  thoroughly  mastered  and 
known  ;  among  them  David  Hume's  copy  of  Shaftes- 
bury's Characteristics,  with  his  autograph,  which  he  had 
picked  up  at  some  stall. 

I  have  said  that  my  mother's  death  was  the  second 
epoch  in  my  father's  life.     I  should  perhaps  have  said 

1  Well  do  I  remember  when  driving  him  from  Melrose  to  Kelso 
long  ago,  we  came  near  Sandyknowe,  that  grim  tower  of  Smailholm 
standing  erect  like  a  warder  turned  to  stone,  defying  time  and  change 
his  bursting  into  that  noble  ballad  — 

"  The  Baron  of  Smaylho'me  rose  with  day, 
He  spurr'd  his  courser  on, 
Without  stop  or  stay,  down  the  rocky  way, 
That  leads  to  Brotherstone  ; " 

and  pointing  out  the  "  Watchfold  height,"  "the  eiry  Beaccn  Hill," 
and  "  Brotherstone." 

10 


146  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

the  third ;  the  first  being  his  mother's  long  illness  and 
death,  and  the  second  his  going  to  Elie,  and  beginning 
the  battle  of  life  at  fifteen.  There  must  have  been  some- 
thing very  delicate  and  close  and  exquisite  in  the  rela- 
tion  between  the  ailing,  silent,  beautiful,  and  pensive 
mother,  and  that  dark-eyed,  dark-haired,  bright  and 
silent  son  ;  a  sort  of  communion  it  is  not  easy  to  ex- 
press. You  can  think  of  him  at  eleven  slowly  writing 
out  that  small  book  of  promises  in  a  distinct  and  minute 
hand,  quite  as  like  his  mature  hand,  as  the  shy,  lus- 
trous-eyed boy  was  to  his  after-self  in  his  manly  years, 
and  sitting  by  the  bedside  while  the  rest  were  out  and 
shouting,  playing  at  hide-and-seek  round  the  little  church, 
with  the  winds  from  Benlomond  or  the  wild  uplands  of 
Ayrshire  blowing  through  their  hair.  He  played  seldom, 
but  when  he  did  run  out,  he  jumped  higher  and  farther, 
and  ran  faster  than  any  of  them.  His  peculiar  beauty 
must  have  come  from  his  mother.  He  used  at  rare  times, 
and  with  a  sort-  of  shudder,  to  tell  of  her  when  a  lovely 
girl  of  fifteen,  having  been  seen  by  a  gentleman  of  rank, 
in  Cheapside,  hand  in  hand  with  an  evil  woman,  who 
was  decoying  her  to  ruin,  on  pretence  of  showing  her  the 
way  home ;  and  how  he  stopped  his  carriage  and  taking 
in  the  unconscious  girl,  drove  her  to  her  uncle's  door. 
But  you  have  said  all  this  better  than  I  can. 

His  time  with  his  mother,  and  the  necessary  confine- 
ment and  bodily  depression  caused  by  it,  I  doubt  not 
deepened  his  native  thoughtful  turn,  and  his  tendency  to 
meditative  melancholy,  as  a  condition  under  which  he 
viewed  all  things,  and  quickened  and  intensified  his  sense 
of  the  suffering  of  this  world,  and  of  the  profound  seri- 
ousness and  mystery  in  the  midst  of  which  we  live  and  die. 

The  second  epoch  was  that  of  his  leaving  home  with 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  147 

his  guinea,  the  last  he  ever  got  from  any  one  but  him- 
self; and  his  going  among"  utter  strangers  to  be  master 
of  a  school  one  half  of  the  scholars  of  which  were  bis- 
ger  and  older  than  himself,  and  all  rough  colts  —  wilful 
and  unbroken.  This  was  his  first  fronting  of  the  world. 
Besides  supporting  himself,  this  knit  the  sinews  of  his 
mind,  and  made  him  rely  on  himself  in  action  as  well  as 
in  thought.  He  sometimes,  but  not  often,  spoke  of  this, 
never  lightly,  though  he  laughed  at  some  of  his  predica- 
ments. He  could  not  forget  the  rude  shock.  Generally 
those  familiar  revelations  were  at  supper,  on  the  Sab- 
bath evening,  when,  his  work  over,  he  enjoyed  and  ling- 
ered over  his  meal. 

From  his  young  and  slight,  almost  girlish  look,  and 
his  refined,  quiet  manners,  the  boys  of  the  school  were 
inclined  to  annoy  and  bully  him.  He  saw  this,  and  felt 
it  was  now  or  never,  —  nothing  between.  So  he  took 
his  line.  The  biggest  boy,  much  older  and  stronger,  was 
the  rudest,  and  infected  the  rest.  The  "wee  maister" 
ordered  him,  in  that  peremptory  voice  we  all  remember, 
to  stand  up  and  hold  out  his  hand,  being  not  at  all  sure 
but  the  big  fellow  might  knock  him  down  on  the  word. 
To  the  astonishment  of  the  school,  and  to  the  big  rebel's 
too,  he  obeyed  and  was  punished  on  the  instant,  and 
to  the  full ;  out  went  the  hand,  down  came  the  "  taws" 
and  bit  like  fire.  From  that  moment  he  ruled  them  by 
his  eye,  the  taws  vanished. 

There  was  an  incident  at  this  time  of  his  life  which 
I  should  perhaps  not  tell,  and  yet  I  don't  know  why 
I  shouldn't,  it  so  perfectly  illustrates  his  character  in 
many  ways.  He  had  come  home  during  the  vacation 
of  his  school  to  Langrig,  and  was  about  to  go  back ;  he 
had  been  renewing  his  intercourse  with  his  old  teacher 


148  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

and  friend  whom  you  mention,  from  whom  he  used  to 
say  he  learned  to  like  Shakspeare,  and  who  seems  to 
have  been  a  man  of  genuine  literary  tastes.  He  went 
down  to  bid  him  good-bye,  and  doubtless  they  got  on  their 
old  book  loves,  and  would  be  spouting  their  pet  pieces. 
The  old  dominie  said,  "John,  my  man,  if  you  are  walk- 
ing into  Edinburgh,  I'll  convoy  you  a  bit."  "  John " 
was  too  happy,  so  next  morning  they  set  off,  keeping 
up  a  constant  fire  of  quotation  and  eager  talk.  They 
got  past  Mid-Calder  to  near  East,  when  my  father  in- 
sisted on  his  friend  returning,  and  also  on  going  back 
a  bit  with  him;  on  looking  at  the  old  man,  he  thought 
he  was  tired,  so  on  reaching  the  well-known  "  Kippen's 
Inn,"  he  stopped  and  insisted  on  giving  him  some  refresh- 
ment. Instead  of  ordering  bread  and  cheese  and  a  bot- 
tle of  ale,  he,  doubtless  full  of  Shakspeare,  and  great 
upon  sack  and  canary,  ordered  a  bottle  of  wine  !  Of  this, 
you  may  be  sure,  the  dominie,  as  he  most  needed  it, 
had  the  greater  share,  and  doubtless  it  warmed  the  coc- 
kles of  his  old  heart.  "  John  "  making  him  finish  the 
bottle,  and  drink  the  health  of  "  Gentle  Will,"  saw  him 
off,  and  went  in  to  pay  the  reckoning.  What  did  he 
know  of  the  price  of  wine  !  It  took  exactly  every  penny 
he  had ;  I  doubt  not,  most  boys,  knowing  that  the  land- 
lord knew  them,  would  have  either  paid  a  part,  or  asked 
him  to  score  it  up.  This  was  not  his  way  ;  he  was  too 
proud  and  shy  and  honest  for  such  an  expedient.  By 
this  time,  what  with  discussing  Shakspeare,  and  witness- 
ing his  master's  leisurely  emptying  of  that  bottle,  and 
releasing  the 

"  Dear  prisoned  spirits  of  the  impassioned  grape," 
he  found  he  must  run   for  it  to  Edinburgh,  or   rather 
Leith,  fourteen  miles ;  this  he  did,  and  was  at  the  pier 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  149 

just  in  time  to  jump  into  the  Elie  pinnace,  which  was 
already  off.  He  often  wondered  what  he  would  have 
done  if  he  had  been  that  one  moment  late.  You  can 
easily  pick  out  the  qualities  this  story  unfolds. 

His  nature,  capable  as  it  was  of  great,  persistent,  and 
indeed  dogged  labor,  was,  from  the  predominance  of  the 
nervous  system  in  his  organization,  excitable,  and  there- 
fore needed  and  relished  excitement  —  the  more  intense 
the  better.  He  found  this  in  his  keen  political  tastes, 
in  imaginative  literature,  and  in  fiction.  In  the  highest 
kind  of  poetry  he  enjoyed  the  sweet  pain  of  tears ;  and 
he  all  his  life  had  a  steady  liking,  even  a  hunger,  for 
a  good  novel.  This  refreshed,  lightened,  and  diverted 
his  mind  from  the  strain  of  his  incessant  exegesis.  He 
used  always  to  say  that  Sir  Walter  and  Goldsmith,  and 
even  Fielding,  Miss  Edgeworth,  Miss  Austen,  and  Miss 
Ferrier,  were  true  benefactors  to  the  race,  by  giving 
such  genuine,  such  secure  and  innocent  pleasure ;  and  he 
often  repeated  with  admiration  Lord  Jeffrey's  words  on 
Scott,  inscribed  on  his  monument.  He  had  no  turn  for 
gardening  or  for  fishing  or  any  field  sports  or  games ; 
his  sensitive  nature  recoiled  from  the  idea  of  pain,  and 
above  all,  needless  pain.  He  used  to  say  the  lower 
creation  had  groans  enough,  and  needed  no  more  bur- 
dens ;  indeed,  he  was  fierce  to  some  measure  of  unfair- 
ness against  such  of  his  brethren  —  Dr.  Wardlaw,  for 
instance 1  —  as  resembled  the  apostles  in  fishing  for  other 
things  besides  men. 

But  the  exercise  and  the  excitement  he  most  of  all 
others  delighted  in,  was  riding ;  and  had  he  been  a  coun- 
try gentleman  and  not  a  clergyman,  I   don't    think  he 

1  After  a  tight  discussion  between  these  two  attached  friends,  Dr. 
Wardlaw  said, "  "Well,  I  can't  answer  you,  but  fish  I  must  and  shall.,• 


150  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

could  have  resisted  fox-hunting.  "With  the  exception  of 
that  great  genius  in  more  than  horsemanship,  Andrew 
Ducrow,  I  never  saw  a  man  sit  a  horse  as  he  did.  He 
seemed  inspired,  gay,  erect,  full  of  the  joy  of  life,  fearless 
and  secure.  '  I  have  heard  a  farmer  friend  say  if  he  had 
not  been  a  preacher  of  the  gospel  he  would  have  been  a 
cavalry  officer,  and  would  have  fought  as  he  preached. 

He  was  known  all  over  the  Upper  Ward  and  down 
Tweeddale  for  his  riding.  "  There  goes  the  minister," 
as  he  rode  past  at  a  swift  canter.  He  had  generally 
well-bred  horses,  or  as  I  would  now  call  them,  ponies ; 
if  he  had  not,  his  sufferings  from  a  dull,  hardmouthed, 
heavy-hearted  and  footed,  plebeian  horse  were  almost 
comic.  On  his  gray  mare,  or  his  little  blood  bay  horse, 
to  see  him  setting  off  and  indulging  it  and  himself  in 
some  alarming  gambols,  and  in  the  midst  of  his  difficul- 
ties, partly  of  his  own  making,  taking  off  his  hat  or  kiss- 
ing his  hand  to  a  lady,  made  one  think  of  "  young 
Harry  with  his  beaver  up."  He  used  to  tell  with  much 
relish,  how,  one  fine  summer  Sabbath  evening  after 
preaching  in  the  open  air  for  a  collection,  in  some  village 
near,  and  having  put  the  money,  chiefly  halfpence,  into 
his  handkerchief,  and  that  into  his  hat,  he  was  taking 
a  smart  gallop  home  across  the  moor,  happy  and  re- 
lieved, when  three  ladies  —  I  think,  the  Miss  Bertrams 
of  Kersewell — came  suddenly  upon  him  ;  off  went  the 
hat,  down  bent  the  head,  and  over  him  streamed  the 
cherished  collection,  the  ladies  busy  among  the  wild  grasa 
and  heather  picking  it  up,  and  he  full  of  droll  confusion 
and  laughter. 

The  gray  mare  he  had  for  many  years.  I  can  remem- 
ber her  small  head  and  large  eyes  ;  her  neat,  compact 
body,  round  as  a  barrel;  her  finely  flea-bitten  skin,  and 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  15'i 

her  thorough -bred  legs.  I  have  no  doubt  she  had  Ara* 
bian  blood.  My  father's  pride  in  her  was  quite  curious. 
Many  a  wild  ride  to  and  from  the  Presbytery  at  Lanark, 
and  across  flooded  and  shifting  fords,  he  had  on  her. 
She  was  as  sweet-tempered  and  enduring,  as  she  was 
fiwift  and  sure ;  and  her  powers  of  running  were  appre- 
ciated and  applied  in  a  way  which  he  was  both  angry  and 
amused  to  discover.  You  know  what  riding  the  bruse 
means.  At  a  country  wedding  the  young  men  have  a 
race  to  the  bridegroom's  home,  and  he  who  wins,  brings 
out  a  bottle  and  glass  and  drinks  the  young  wife's  health. 
I  wish  Burns  had  described  a  bruse ;  all  sorts  of  steeds, 
wild,  unkempt  lads  as  well  as  colts,  old  broken-down 
thorough-breds  that  did  wonders  when  soopled,  huge, 
grave  cart  horses  devouring  the  road  with  their  shaggy 
hoofs,  wilful  ponies,  etc.  You  can  imagine  the  wild 
hurry-skurry  and  fun,  the  comic  situations  and  upsets 
over  a  rough  road,  up  and  down  places  one  would  be 
giddy  to  look  at. 

Well,  the  young  farmers  were  in  the  habit  of  com- 
ing to  my  father,  and  asking  the  loan  of  the  mare  to 
go  and  see  a  friend,  etc.,  etc.,  praising  knowingly  the  fine 
points  and  virtues  of  his  darling.  Having  through  life, 
with  all  his  firmness  of  nature,  an  abhorrence  of  saying 
"  No  "  to  any  one,  the  interview  generally  ended  with, 
"  Well,  Robert,  you  may  have  her,  but  take  care  of  her, 
and  don't  ride  her  fast."  In  an  hour  or  two  Robert  was 
riding  the  bruse,  and  flying  away  from  the  crowd,  Gray 
first,  and  the  rest  nowhere,  and  might  be  seen  turning 
the  corner  of  the  farm-house  with  the  victorious  bottle  in 
his  uplifted  hand,  the  motley  pack  panting  vainly  up  the 
hill.  This  went  on  for  long,  and  the  gray  was  famous, 
almost  notorious,  all  over  the  Upper  Ward ;  sometimes 


152  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

if  she  appeared,  no  one  would  start,  and  she  trotted  the 
course.  Partly  from  his  own  personal  abstraction  from 
outward  country  life,  and  partly  from  Uncle  Johnston's 
sense  of  waggery  keeping  him  from  telling  his  friend  of 
the  gray's  last  exploit  at  Hartree  Mill,  or  her  leaping 
over  the  "  best  man  "  at  Thriepland,  my  father  was  the 
last  to  hear  of  this  equivocal  glory  of  "  the  minister's 
meer."  Indeed,  it  was  whispered  she  had  once  won  a 
whip  at  Lanark  races.  They  still  tell  of  his  feats  on 
this  fine  creature,  one  of  which  he  himself  never  alluded 
to  without  a  feeling  of  shame.  He  had  an  engagement 
to  preach  somewhere  beyond  the  Clyde  on  a  Sabbath 
evening,  and  his  excellent  and  attached  friend  and  elder, 
Mr.  Kello  of  Lindsay-lands,  accompanied  him  on  his 
big  plough  horse.  It  was  to  be  in  the  open  air,  on  the 
river  side.  When  they  got  to  the  Clyde  they  found  it 
in  full  flood,  heavy  and  sudden  rains  at  the  head  of  the 
water  having  brought  it  down  in  a  wild  spate.  On  the 
opposite  side  were  the  gathered  people  and  the  tent. 
Before  Mr.  Kello  knew  where  he  was,  there  was  his 
minister  on  the  mare  swimming  across,  and  carried  down 
in  a  long  diagonal,  the  people  looking  on  in  terror.  He 
landed,  shook  himself,  and  preached  with  his  usual  fer- 
vor. As  I  have  said,  he  never  liked  to  speak  of  this 
bit  of  hardihood,  and  he  never  repeated  it ;  but  it  was 
like  the  man  — there  were  the  people,  that  was  what  he 
would  be  at,  and  though  timid  for  anticipated  danger 
as  any  woman,  in  it  he  was  without  fear. 

One  more  illustration  of  his  character  in  connection 
with  his  riding.  On  coming  to  Edinburgh  he  gave  up 
this  kind  of  exercise  ;  he  had  no  occasion  for  it,  and  he 
had  enough,  and  more  than  enough  of  excitement  in  the 
public  questions  in  which  he  found  himself  involved,  and 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  153 

m  the  miscellaneous  activities  of  a  popular  town  minis- 
ter. I  was  then  a  young  doctor  —  it  must  have  been 
about  1840 — and  had  a  patient,  Mrs.  James  Robert- 
son, eldest  daughter  of  Mr.  Pirie,  the  predecessor  of 
Dr.  Dick  in  what  was  then  Shuttle  Street  congregation, 
Glasgow.  She  was  one  of  my  father's  earliest  and  dear- 
est friends,  —  a  mother  in  the  Burgher  Israel,  she  and 
her  cordial  husband  "  given  to  hospitality,"  especially 
to  "  the  Prophets."  She  was  hopelessly  ill  at  Juniper 
Green,  near  Edinburgh.  Mr.  George  Stone,  then  liv- 
ing at  Muirhouse,  one  of  my  father's  congregation  in 
Broughton  Place,  a  man  of  equal  originality  and  worth, 
and  devoted  to  his  minister,  knowing  my  love  of  riding, 
offered  me  his  blood-chestnut  to  ride  out  and  make  my 
visit.  My  father  said,  "  John,  if  you  are  going,  I  would 
like  to  ride  out  with  you  ; "  he  wished  to  see  his  dying 
friend.  "  You  ride  ! "  said  Mr.  Stone,  who  was  a  very 
Yorkshireman  in  the  matter  of  horses.  "  Let  him  try," 
said  I.  The  upshot  was,  that  Mr.  Stone  sent  the  chest- 
nut for  me,  and  a  sedate  pony  —  called,  if  I  forget  not, 
Goliath  —  for  his  minister,  with  all  sorts  of  injunctions 
to  me  to  keep  him  off  the  thorough-bred,  and  on  Goliath. 
My  father  had  not  been  on  a  horse  for  nearly  twenty 
years.  He  mounted  and  rode  off.  He  soon  got  teased 
with  the  short,  pattering  steps  of  Goliath,  and  looked 
wistfully  up  at  me,  and  longingly  to  the  tall  chestnut, 
stepping  once  for  Goliath's  twice,  like  the  Don  striding 
beside  Sancho.  I  saw  what  he  was  after,  and  when 
past  the  toll  he  said  in  a  mild  sort  of  way,  "  John,  did 
you  promise  absolutely  I  was  not  to  ride  your  horse  ?  " 
tt  No,  father,  certainly  not.  Mr.  Stone,  I  daresay,  wished 
me  to  do  so,  but  I  didn't."  "  Well  then,  I  think  we'll 
change ;  this  beast  shakes  me."     So  we  changed.     I  re- 


154  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

member  how  noble  he  looked ;  how  at  home :  his  white 
hair  and  his  dark  eyes,  his  erect,  easy,  accustomed  seat. 
He  soon  let  his  eager  horse  slip  gently  away.  It  was 
first  evasit,  he  was  off,  Goliath  and  I  jogging  on  behind ; 
then  erupit,  and  in  a  twinkling  —  evanuit.  I  saw  them 
last  flashing  through  the  arch  under  the  Canal,  his  white 
hair  flying.  I  was  uneasy,  though  from  his  riding  I 
knew  he  was  as  yet  in  command,  so  I  put  Goliath  to  his 
best,  and  having  passed  through  Slateford,  I  asked 
a  stonebreaker  if  he  saw  a  gentleman  on  a  chestnut 
horse.  "  Has  he  white  hair  ? "  "  Yes."  "  And  een 
like  a  gled's?"  "Yes."  "  Weel  then,  he's  fleein'  up 
the  road  like  the  wund ;  he'll  be  at  Little  Vantage 
(about  nine  miles  off)  "  in  nae  time  if  he  baud  on."  I 
never  once  sighted  him,  but  on  coming  into  Juniper 
Green  there  was  his  steaming  chestnut  at  the  gate, 
neighing  cheerily  to  Goliath.  I  went  in,  he  was  at 
the  bedside  of  his  friend,  and  in  the  midst  of  prayer; 
his  words  as  I  entered  were,  "When  thou  passest 
through  the  waters  I  will  be  with  thee,  and  through 
the  rivers,  they  shall  not  overflow  thee ; "  and  he  was 
not  the  least  instant  in  prayer  that  his  blood  was  up 
with  his  ride.  He  never  again  saw  Mrs.  Robertson, 
or  as  she  was  called  when  they  were  young,  Sibbie 
(Sibella)  Pirie.  On  coming  out  he  said  nothing,  but 
took  the  chestnut,  mounted  her,  and  we  came  home 
quietly.  His  heart  was  opened ;  he  spoke  of  old  times 
and  old  friends;  he  stopped  at  the  exquisite  view  at 
Hailes  into  the  valley,  and  up  the  Pentlands  beyond, 
the  smoke  of  Kate's  Mill  rising  in  the  still  and  shadowy 
air,  and  broke  out  into  Cowper's  words :  Yes,  — 

"  HE  sets  the  bright  procession  on  its  way, 
And  marshals  all  the  order  of  the  year; 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  155 

And  ere  one  flowery  season  fades  and  dies, 
Designs  the  blooming  wonders  of  the  next." 

Then  as  we  came  slowly  in,  the  moon  shone  behind 
Craiglockhart  hill  among  the  old  Scotch  firs ;  he  pulled 
up  again,  and  gave  me  Collins'  Ode  to  Evening,  begin- 
ning — 

"  If  aught  of  oaten  stop,  or  pastoral  song, 
May  hope,  chaste  Eve,  to  soothe  thy  modest  ear, 
Thy  springs,  and  dying  gales;  " 

repeating  over  and  over  some  of  the  lines,  as 

"  Thy  modest  ear, 
Thy  springs,  and  dying  gales." 

"  —  And  marks  o'er  all 
Thy  dewy  fingers  draw 
The  gradual  dusky  veil." 

And  when  she  looked  out  on  us  clear  and  full,  "  Yes  — 

"  The  moon  takes  up  the  wondrous  tale, 
And  nightly  to  the  listening  earth 
Repeats  the  story  of  her  birth." 

As  we  passed  through  Slateford,  he  spoke  of  Dr.  Bel- 
frage,  his  great-hearted  friend,  of  his  obligations  to  him, 
and  of  his  son,  my  friend,  both  lying  together  in  Colin- 
ton  churchyard ;  and  of  Dr.  Dick,  who  was  minister  be- 
fore him,  of  the  Coventrys,  and  of  Stitchel  and  Sprous- 
ton,  of  his  mother,  and  of  himself,  —  his  doubts  of  his  own 
sincerity  in  religion,  his  sense  of  sin,  of  God  —  revert- 
ing often  to  his  dying  friend.  Such  a  thing  only  oc- 
curred to  me  with  him  once  or  twice  all  my  life ;  and 
then  when  we  were  home,  he  was  silent,  shut  up,  self- 
contained  as  before.  He  was  himself  conscious  of  this 
habit  of  reticence,  and  what  may  be  called  seljtsm  to  us, 
his  children,  and  lamented  it.  I  remember  his  saying 
in  a  sort  of  mournful  joke,  "  I  have  a  well  of  love  ;  I 


156  MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR. 

know  it ;  but  it  is  a  well,  and  a  draw-well,  to  your  sor- 
row and  mine,  and  it  seldom  overflows,  but,"  looking 
with  that  strange  power  of  tenderness  as  if  he  put  his 
voice  and  his  heart  into  his  eyes,  "  you  may  always  come 
hither  to  draw  ; "  he  used  to  say  he  might  take  to  him- 
self Wordsworth's  lines, — 

"  I  am  not  one  who  much  or  oft  delights 
To  season  my  fireside  with  personal  talk." 

And  changing  "  though  "  into  "  if:  " 

"  A  well  of  love  it  may  be  deep, 
I  trust  it  is,  and  never  dry ; 
What  matter,  though  its  waters  sleep 
In  silence  and  obscurity?  " 

The  expression  of  his  affection  was  more  like  the 
shock  of  a  Leyden  jar,  than  the  continuous  current  of 
a  galvanic  circle. 

There  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  permanent  chill  given 
by  my  mothei*'s  death,  to  what  may  be  called  the  outer 
surface  of  his  nature,  and  we  at  home  felt  it  much.  The 
blood  was  thrown  in  upon  the  centre,  and  went  forth  in 
energetic  and  victorious  work,  in  searching  the  Scrip- 
tures and  saving  souls ;  but  his  social  faculty  never  re- 
covered that  shock  !  it  was  blighted  ;  he  was  always  de- 
siring to  be  alone  and  at  his  work.  A  stranger  who  saw 
him  for  a  short  time,  bright,  animated,  full  of  earnest  and 
cordial  talk,  pleasing  and  being  pleased,  the  life  of  the 
company,  was  apt  to  think  how  delightful  he  must  always 
be,  —  and  so  he  was  ;  but  these  times  of  bright  talk  were 
like  angels'  visits  ;  and  he  smiled  with  peculiar  benignity 
on  his  retiring  guest,  as  if  blessing  him  not  the  less  for 
leaving  him  to  himself.  I  question  if  there  ever  lived  a 
man  so  much  in  the  midst  of  men,  and  in  the  midst  of 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  157 

his  own  children,1  in  whom  the  silences,  as  Mr.  Carlyle 
would  say,  were  so  predominant.  Every  Sabbath  he 
spoke  out  of  the  abundance  of  his  heart,  his  whole  mind; 
he  was  then  communicative  and  frank  enough  :  all  the 
week,  before  and  after,  he  would  not  unwillingly  have 
never  opened  his  mouth.  Of  many  people  we  may  say 
that  their  mouth  is  always  open  except  when  it  is  shut ; 
of  him  that  his  mouth  was  always  shut  except  when  it 
was  opened.  Every  one  must  have  been  struck  with  the 
seeming  inconsistency  of  his  occasional  brilliant,  happy, 
energetic  talk,  and  his  habitual  silentness  —  his  difficulty 
in  getting  anything  to  say.  But,  as  I  have  already  said, 
what  we  lost,  the  world  and  the  church  gained. 

When  travelling  he  was  always  in  high  spirits  and  full 
of  anecdote  and  fun.  Indeed  I  knew  more  of  his  inner 
history  in  this  one  way,  than  during  years  of  living  with 
him.  I  recollect  his  taking  me  with  him  to  Glasgow 
when  I  must  have  been  about  fourteen  ;  we  breakfasted 
in  "The  Ram's  Horn  Tavern"  and  I  felt  a  new  respect 
for  him  at  his  commanding  the  waiters.  He  talked  a 
great  deal  during  our  short  tour,  and  often  have  I  de- 
sired to  recall  the  many  things  he  told  me  of  his  early 
life,  and  of  his  own  religious  crises,  my  mother's  death, 
his  fear  of  his  own  death,  and  all  this  intermingled  with 
the  drollest  stories  of  his  boy  and  student  life. 

We  went  to  Paisley  and  dined,  I  well  remember,  we 
two  alone,  and,  as  I  thought,  magnificently,  in  a  great 
apartment  in  "The  Saracen's  Head"  at  the  end  of  which 
was  the  county  ball-room.  We  had  come  across  from 
Dunoon  and  landed  in  a  small  boat  at  the  Water  Neb 
along  with  Mrs.  Dr.  Hall,  a  character  Sir  Walter  or 
Gait  would  have  made  immortal. ,  My  father  with  char- 
1  He  gave  us  all  the  education  we  got  at  Biggar. 


158  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

acteristic  ardor  took  an  oar,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life, 
and  I  believe  for  the  last,  to  help  the  old  boatman  on  the 
Cart,  and  wishing  to  do  something  decided,  missed  the 
water,  and  went  back  head  over  heels  to  the  immense 
enjoyment  of  Mrs.  Hall,  who  said,  "  Less  pith,  and  mair 
to  the  purpose,  my  man."  She  didn't  let  the  joke  die 
out. 

Another  time  —  it  was  when  his  second  marriage  was 
fixed  on,  to  our  great  happiness  and  his  —  I  had  just 
taken  my  degree  of  M.D.,  and  he  took  Isabella,  William, 
and  myself  to  Moffat.  By  a  curious  felicity  we  got  into 
Miss  Geddes'  lodgings,  where  the  village  circulating 
library  was  kept,  the  whole  of  which  we  aver  he  read  in 
ten  days.  I  never  saw  him  so  happy,  so  open  and  full 
of  mirth,  reading  to  us,  and  reciting  the  poetry  of  his 
youth.  On  these  rare  but  delightful  occasions  he  was 
fond  of  exhibiting,  when  asked,  his  powers  of  rapid 
speaking,  in  which  he  might  have  rivalled  old  Matthews 
or  his  son.  His  favorite  feat  was  repeating  "  Says  I  to 
my  Lord,  quo'  I  —  what  for  will  ye  no  grund  ma  barley- 
meal  mouter-free,  says  I  to  my  Lord,  quo'  I,  says  I, 
I  says."  He  was  brilliant  upon  the  final,  "  I  says." 
Another  chef-d'oeuvre  was,  "  On  Tintock  tap  there  is  a 
mist,  and  in  the  mist  there  is  a  kist  (a  chest),  and  in  the 
kist  there  is  a  cap  (a  wooden  bowl),  and  in  the  cap  there 
is  a  drap,  tak'  up  the  cap,  and  sup  the  drap,  and  set  the 
cap  on  Tintock  tap."  This  he  could  say,  if  I  mistake 
not,  five  times  without  drawing  breath.  It  was  a  fa- 
vorite passage  this,  and  he  often  threatened  to  treat  it 
exegetically ;  laughing  heartily  when  I  said,  in  that  case, 
he  would  not  have  great  trouble  with  the  context,  which 
in  others  cost  him  a  good  deal. 

His  manners  to  ladies,  and  indeed  to  all  women,  was 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  159 

that  of  a  courtly  gentleman ;  they  could  be  romantic  in 
their  empressement  and  devotion,  and  I  used  to  think  Sir 
Philip  Sydney,  or  Ariosto's  knights  and  the  Paladins  of 
old,  must  have  looked  and  moved  as  he  did.     He  had 
great    pleasure    in   the    company  of   high-bred,    refined 
thoughtful  women  ;  and  he  had  a  peculiar  sympathy  with 
the  sufferings,  the  necessary  mournfulness  of  women,  and 
with  all  in  their  lot  connected  with  the  fruit  of  that  for- 
bidden tree  —  their  loneliness,  the  sorrows  of  their  time., 
and  their  pangs  in  travail,  their  peculiar  relation  to  their 
children.     I  think  I  hear  him  reading  the  words,  "  Can 
a  woman  forget  her  sucking  child,  that  she  should  not 
have  compassion  on  the  son  of  her  womb  ?     Yea  "  (as 
if  it  was  the  next  thing  to  impossible),  "  she  may  forget, 
yet  will  not  I  forget  thee."     Indeed,  to  a  man  who  saw 
so  little  of,  and  said  so  little  to  his  own  children,  perhaps 
it  may  be  because  of  all  this,  his  sympathy  for  mothers 
under  loss  of  children,  his  real  suffering  for  their  suffer- 
ing, not  only  endeared  him  to  them  as  their  minister, 
their  consoler,  and  gave  him  opportunities  of  dropping  in 
divine  and  saving  truth  and  comfort,  when  the  heart  was 
full  and  soft,  tender,  and  at  his  mercy,  but  it  brought  out 
in  his  only  loss  of  this  kind,  the  mingled  depth,  tender- 
ness, and  also  the  peremptoriness  of  his  nature. 

In  the  case  of  the  death  of  little  Maggie  —  a  child 
the  very  image  of  himself  in  face,  lovely  and  pensive, 
and  yet  ready  for  any  fun,  with  a  keenness  of  affection 
that  perilled  everything  on  being  loved,  who  must  cling 
to  some  one  and  be  clasped,  made  for  a  garden,  for  the 
first  garden,  not  for  the  rough  world,  the  child  of  his 
old  age  —  this  peculiar  meeting  of  opposites  was  very 
marked.  She  was  stricken  with  sudden  illness,  malig 
nant  sore  throat ;  her  mother  was  gone,  and  so  she  was 


160  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

to  my  father  as  a  flower  he  had  the  sole  keeping  of;  and 
his  joy  in  her  wild  mirth,  his  watching  her  childish 
moods  of  sadness,  as  if  a  shadow  came  over  her  young 
heaven,  were  themselves  something  to  watch.  Her  deli- 
cate life  made  no  struggle  with  disease;  it  as  it  were 
declined  to  stay  on  such  conditions.  She  therefore  sunk 
at  once  and  without  much  pain,  her  soul  quick  and 
unclouded,  and  her  little  forefinger  playing  to  the  last 
with  my  father's  silvery  curls,  her  eyes  trying  in  vain 
to  brighten  his  :  — 

"  Thou  wert  a  dew-drop  which  the  morn  brings  forth, 
Not  fitted  to  be  trailed  along  the  soiling  earth; 
But  at  the  touch  of  wrong,  without  a  strife, 
Slips  in  a  moment  out  of  life." 

His  distress,  his  anguish  at  this  stroke,  was  not  only  in- 
tense, it  was  in  its  essence  permanent ;  he  went  mourn- 
ing and  looking  for  her  all  his  days ;  but  after  she  was 
dead,  that  resolved  will  compacted  him  in  an  instant.  It 
was  on  a  Sabbath  morning  she  died,  and  he  was  all  day 
at  church,  not  many  yards  from  where  lay  her  little 
corpse  alone  in  the  house.  His  colleague  preached  in 
the  forenoon,  and  in  the  afternoon  he  took  his  turn,  say- 
ing before  beginning  his  discourse  :  —  "It  has  pleased 
the  Father  of  Lights  to  darken  one  of  the  lights  of  my 
dwelling  —  had  the  child  lived  I  would  have  remained 
with  her,  but  now  I  have  thought  it  right  to  arise  and 
come  into  the  house  of  the  Lord  and  worship."  Such 
violence  to  one  part  of  his  nature  by  that  in  it  which 
was  supreme,  injured  him  :  it  was  like  pulling  up  on  the 
instant  an  express  train  ;  the  whole  inner  organization  is 
minutely,  though  it  may  be  invisibly  hurt ;  its  molecu- 
lar constitution  damaged  by  the  cruel  stress  and  strain. 
Such  things  are  not  right ;  they  are  a  cruelty  and  injustice 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  161 

and  injury  from  the  soul  to  the  body,  its  faithful  slave, 
and  they  bring  down,  as  in  his  case  they  too  truly  did, 
their  own  certain  and  specific  retribution.  A  man  who 
did  not  feel  keenly  might  have  preached  ;  a  man  whose 
whole  nature  was  torn,  shattered,  and  astonished  as  his 
was,  had  in  a  high  sense  no  right  so  to  use  himself;  and 
when  too  late  he  opened  his  eyes  to  this.  It  was  part  of 
our  old  Scottish  severe  unsparing  character  —  calm  to  cold 
ness  outside,  burning  to  fierceness,  tender  to  agony  within 
I  was  saying  how  much  my  father  enjoyed  women's 
company.  He  liked  to  look  on  them,  and  watch  them, 
listening  x  to  their  keen,  unconnected,  and  unreasoning, 
but  not  unreasonable  talk.  Men's  argument,  or  rather 
arguing,  and  above  all  debating,  he  disliked.  He  had 
no  turn  for  it.  He  was  not  combative,  much  less  con- 
tentious. He  was,  however,  warlike.  Anything  that 
he  could  destroy,  any  falsehood  or  injustice,  he  made 
for,  not  to  discuss,  but  to  expose  and  kill.  He  could 
not  fence  with  his  mind  much  less  with  his  tongue,  and 
had  no  love  for  the  exploits  of  a  nimble  dialectic.  He 
had  no  readiness  either  in  thought  or  word  for  this  ;  his 
way  was  slowly  to  think  out  a  subject,  to  get  it  well 
"  bottomed,"  as  Locke  would  say ;  he  was  not  careful 
as  to  recording  the  steps  he  took  in  their  order,  but  the 
spirit  of  his  mind  was  logical,  as  must  be  that  of  all 

1  One   day  my  mother,  and  her  only  sister,  Agnes  —  married  t 
James  Aitken  of  Cullands,  a  man  before  his  class  and  his  time,  for 
long  the  only  Whig  and  Seceder  laird  in  Peeblesshire,  and  with  whom 
my  father  shared  the  Edinburgh  Review  from  its  beginning  —  the  tw 
sisters  who  were,  the  one  to  the  other,  as  Martha  was  to  Mary,  sat 
talking  of  their  household  doings;   my  aunt  was  great  upon  some 
things  she  could  do;  my  father  looked  up  from  his  book,  and  said, 
"There  is  one  thing,  Mrs.  Aitken,  you  cannot  do — you  cannot  turn 
the  heel  of  a  stocking;  "  and  he  was  right,  he  had  noticed  her  make 
over  this  "  kittle  "  turn  to  her  mother. 
11 


162  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

minds  who  seek  and  find  truth,  for  logic  is  nothing  else 
than  the  arithmetic  of  thought ;  having  therefore  thought 
it  out,  he  proceeded  to  put  it  into  formal  expression. 
This  he  did  so  as  never  again  to  undo  it.  His  mind 
seemed  to  want  the  wheels  by  which  this  is  done,  vesti- 
gia nulla  retrorsum,  and  having  stereotyped  it,  he  was 
never  weary  of  it ;  it  never  lost  its  life  and  freshness  to 
him,  and  he  delivered  it  as  emphatically  thirty  years 
after  it  had  been  cast,  as  the  first  hour  of  its  existence. 
I  have  said  he  was  no  swordsman,  but  he  was  a 
heavy  shot ;  he  fired  off"  his  ball,  compact,  weighty,  the 
maximum  of  substance  in  the  minimum  of  bulk  ;  he  put 
in  double  charge,  pointed  the  muzzle,  and  fired,  with 
what  force  and  sharpness  we  all  remember.  If  it  hit, 
good  ;  if  not,  all  he  could  do  was  to  load  again,  with  the 
same  ball,  and  in  the  same  direction.  You  must  come 
to  him  to  be  shot,  at  least  you  must  stand  still,  for 
he  had  a  want  of  mobility  of  mind  in  great  questions. 
He  could  not  stalk  about  the  field  like  a  sharp-shooter ; 
his  was  a  great  sixty-eight  pounder,  and  it  was  not  much 
of  a  swivel.  Thus  it  was  that  he  rather  dropped  into 
the  minds  of  others  his  authoritative  assertions,  and  left 
them  to  breed  conviction.  If  they  gave  them  entrance 
and  cherished  them,  they  would  soon  find  how  full  of 
primary  truth  they  were,  and  how  well  they  would  serve 
them,  as  they  had  served  him.  With  all  this  heavy 
artillery,  somewhat  slow  and  cumbrous,  on  great  ques- 
tions, he  had  no  want,  when  he  was  speaking  off-hand, 
of  quick,  snell  remark,  often  witty  and  full  of  spirit,  and 
often  too  unexpected,  like  lightning  —  flashing,  smiting, 
and  gone.  In  Church  Courts  this  was  very  marked. 
On  small  ordinary  matters,  a  word  from  him  would  set- 
tle a  long  discussion.     He  would,  after  lively,  easy  talk 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  163 

with  his  next  neighbor,  set  him  up  to  make  a  speech, 
which  was  conclusive.  But  on  great  questions  he  must 
move  forward  his  great  gun  with  much  solemnity  and 
effort,  partly  from  his  desire  to  say  as  much  of  the  truth 
at  once  as  he  could,  partly  from  the  natural  concentra- 
tion and  rapidity  of  his  mind  in  action,  as  distinguished 
from  his  slowness  when  incubating,  or  in  the  process  of 
thought,  —  and  partly  from  a  sort  of  self-consciousness 
—  I  might  almost  call  it  a  compound  of  pride  and  ner- 
vous diffidence  —  which  seldom  left  him.  He  desired 
to  say  it  so  that  it  might  never  need  to  be  said  again 
or  otherwise  by  himself,  or  any  one  else. 

This  strong  personality,  along  with  a  prevailing  love 
to  be  alone,  and  dwell  with  thoughts  rather  than  with 
thinkers,  pervaded  his  entire  character.  His  religion 
was  deeply  personal,1  not  only  as  affecting  himself,  but 
as  due  to  a  personal  God,  and  presented  through  the 
sacrifice  and  intercession  of  the  God-man  ;  and  it  was 
perhaps  owing  to  his  "  conversation  "  being  so  habitu- 
ally in  heaven  —  his  social  and  affectionate  desires  fill- 
ing themselves  continually  from  "  all  the  fulness  of 
God,"  through  living  faith  and  love  —  that  he  the  less 
felt  the  need  of  giving  and  receiving  human  affection. 
I  never  knew  any  man  who  lived  more  truly  under  the 
power,  and  sometimes  under  the  shadow  of  the  world  to 
come.  This  world  had  to  him  little  reality  except  as 
leading  to  the  next ;  little  interest,  except  as  the  time  of 
probation  and  sentence.  A  child  brought  \o  him  to  be 
baptized  was  in  his  mind,  and  in  his  words,  "  a  young 
immortal  to  be  educated  for  eternity;"  a  birth  was  the 

1  In  his  own  words,  "  A  personal  Deity  is  the  soul  of  Natural  Re- 
ligion; a  personal  Saviour  —  the  real  living  Christ — is  the  soul  of 
Revealed  Religion." 


164  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

beginning  of  what  was  never  to  end ;  sin  —  his  own  and 
that  of  the  race  —  was  to  him,  as  it  must  be  to  all  men 
who  can  think,  the  great  mystery,  as  it  is  the  main  curse 
of  time.  The  idea  of  it  —  of  its  exceeding  sinfulness  — 
haunted  and  oppressed  him.  He  used  to  say  of  John 
Foster,  that  this  deep  and  intense,  but  sometimes  nar- 
row and  grim  thinker,  had,  in  his  study  of  the  disease 
of  the  race,  been,  as  it  were,  fascinated  by  its  awful 
spell,  so  as  almost  to  forget  the  remedy.  This  was  not 
the  case  with  himself.  As  you  know,  no  man  held  more 
firmly  to  the  objective  reality  of  his  religion  —  that  it 
was  founded  upon  fact.  It  was  not  the  pole-star  he  lost 
sight  of,  or  the  compass  he  mistrusted ;  it  was  the  sea- 
worthiness of  the  vessel.  His  constitutional  deficiency 
of  hope,  his  sensibility  to  sin,  made  him  not  unfre- 
quently  stand  in  doubt  of  himself,  of  his  sincerity  and 
safety  before  God,  and  sometimes  made  existence  — 
the  being  obliged  to  continue  to  be  —  a  doubtful  priv- 
ilege. 

"When  oppressed  with  this  feeling,  —  "  the  burden  and 
the  mystery  of  all  this  unintelligible  world,"  the  hurry 
of  mankind  out  of  this  brief  world  into  the  unchange- 
able and  endless  next,  —  I  have  heard  him,  with  deep 
feeling,  repeat  Andrew  Marvel's  strong  lines  :  — 

"  But  at  my  back  I  always  hear 
Time's  winged  chariots  hurrying  near; 
And  yonder  all  before  me  lie 
Deserts  of  vast  eternity." 

His  living  so  much  on  books,  and  his  strong  personal 
attachment  to  men,  as  distinct  from  his  adhesion  to  their 
principles  and  views,  made  him,  as  it  were,  live  and  com- 
mune with  the  dead  —  made  him  intimate,  not  merely 
with  their  thoughts,  and  the  public  events  of  their  lives, 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  165 

but  with  themselves  —  Augustine,  Milton,  Luther,  Me- 
lancthon,  George  Herbert,  Baxter,  Howe,  Owen,  Leigh- 
ton,  Barrow,  Bunyan,  Philip  and  Matthew  Henry,  Dod 
dridge,  Defoe,  Marvel,  Locke,  Berkeley,  Halliburton 
Cowper,  Gray,  Johnson,  Gibbon,  and  David  Hume,1 
Jortin,  Boston,  Bengel,  Neander,  etc.,  not  to  speak  of 
the  apostles,  and  above  all,  his  chief  friend  the  author 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  whom  he  looked  on  as 
the  greatest  of  men,  —  with  all  these  he  had  personal 
relations  as  men,  he  cordialized  with  them.  He  had 
thought  much  more  about  them — would  have  had  more 
to  say  to  them  had  they  met,  than  about  or  to  any  but 
a  very  few  living  men.2  He  delighted  to  possess  books 
which  any  of  them  might  have  held  in  their  hands,  on 

1  David  Hume's  Treatise  on  Human  Nature  he  knew  thoroughly, 
and  read  it  carefully  during  his  last  illness.  He  used  to  say  it  not 
only  was  a  miracle  of  intellectual  and  literary  power  for  a  man  of 
twenty-eight,  but  contained  the  essence  of  all  that  was  best  on  the 
philosophy  of  mind;  "  It's  all  there,  if  you  will  think  it  out." 

2  This  tendency  was  curiously  seen  in  his  love  of  portraits,  espec- 
ially of  men  whose  works  he  had  and  liked.  He  often  put  portraits 
into  his  books,  and  he  seemed  to  enjoy  this  way  of  realizing  their  au- 
thors ;  and  in  exhibitions  of  pictures  he  was  more  taken  up  with  what 
is  usually  and  justly  the  most  tiresome  departments,  the  portraits, 
than  with  all  else.  He  was  not  learned  in  engravings,  and  made  no 
attempt  at  collecting  them,  so  that  the  following  list  of  portraits  in  his 
rooms  shows  his  liking  for  the  men  much  more  than  for  the  art  which 
delineated  them.  Of  course  they  by  no  means  include  all  his  friends, 
ancient  and  modem,  but  they  all  were  his  friends :  — 

Robert  Hall  —  Dr.  Carey  —  Melancthon  —  Calvin  —  Pollok  — 
Erasmus  (very  like  "Uncle  Ebenezer")  —  John  Knox  —  Dr.  Waugh 

—  John  Milton  (three  all  framed)— Dr.  Dick  — Dr.  Hall  —  Luther 
(two)  —  Dr.   Heugh — Dr.  Mitchell  —  Dr.   Balmer  —  Dr.    Henderson 

—  Dr.  WarJlaw  —  Shakspeare  (a  small  oil  painting  which  he  had 
since  ever  I  remember)  —  Dugald  Stewart  —  Dr.  Innes — Dr.  Smith, 
Biggar  —  the  two  Erskines  and  Mr.  Fisher  —  Dr.  John  Taylor  of  To- 
ronto—  Dr.  Chalmers  —  Mr.  William  Ellis  —  Rev.  James  Elles  — 
J.  B.  Patterson  —  Vinet  —  Archibald  M'Lean  —  Dr.  John  Erskine  — 


166  MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR 

which  they  had  written  their  names.  He  had  a  num- 
ber of  these,  some  very  curious ;  among  others,  that  wild 
soldier,  man  of  fashion  and  wit  among  the  reformers, 
Ulric  von  Hiitten's  autograph  on  Erasmus'  beautiful 
folio  Greek  Testament,  and  John  Howe's  (spelt  How) 
on  the  first  edition  of  Milton's  Speech  on  Unlicensed 
Printing.1      He   began   collecting   books    when    he   was 

Tholuck  —  John  Pym  —  Gesenius  —  Professor  Finlayson  —  Richard 
Baxter — Dr.  Lawson — Dr.  Peddie  (two,  and  a  copy  of  Joseph's 
noble  bust);  and  they  were  thus  all  about  him  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  he  liked  to  look  at  and  think  of  them  through  their  counte- 
nances. 

1  In  a  copy  of  Baxter's  Life  and  Times,  which  he  picked  up  at 
Maurice  Ogle's  shop  ill  Glasgow,  which  had  belonged  to  Anna,  Coun- 
tess of  Argyll,  besides  her  autograph,  there  is  a  most  affecting  and 
interesting  note  in  that  venerable  lady's  handwriting.  It  occurs  on 
the  page  where  Baxter  brings  a  charge  of  want  of  veracity  against 
her  eldest  and  name-daughter  who  was  perverted  to  Popery.  They 
are  in  a  hand  tremulous  with  age  and  feeling:  —  "I  can  say  w'  truth 
I  neuer  in  all  my  lyff  did  hear  hir  ly,  and  what  she  said,  if  it  was 
not  trew,  it  was  by  others  sugested  to  hir,  as  y'  she  wold  embak  on 
Wedensday.  She"belived  she  wold,  bot  thy  took  hir,  alles!  from  me 
who  never  did  sie  her  mor.  The  minester  of  Cuper,  Mr.  John  Magill, 
did  sie  hir  at  Paris  in  the  convent.  Said  she  was  a  knowing  and  ver- 
tuous  person,  and  hed  retined  the  living  principels  of  our  relidgon, 
which  made  him  say  it  was  good  to  grund  young  persons  weel  in  ther 
relidgion,  as  she  was  one  it  appired  weel  grunded." 

The  following  is  Lord  Lindsay's  letter,  on  seeing  this  remarkable 
marginal  note :  — 

Edinburgh,  Douglas'  Hotel, 
26th  December  1856. 

My  dear  Sir,  —  I  owe  you  my  sincerest  thanks  for  your  kindness 
in  favoring  me  with  a  sight  of  the  volume  of  Baxter's  Life,  which 
formerly  belonged  to  my  ancestrix,  Anna,  Countess  of  Argyll.  The 
MS.  note  inserted  by  her  in  it  respecting  her  daughter  is  extremely  in- 
teresting. I  had  always  been  under  the  impression  that  the  daughter 
had  died  very  shortly  after  her  removal  to  France,  but  the  contrary 
appears  from  Lady  Argyll's  memorandum.  That  memorandum  throws 
also  a  pleasing  light  on  the  later  life  of  Lady  Anna,  and  forcibly  illus- 
trates the  undying  love  and  tenderness  of  the  aged  mother,  who  must 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  167 

twdve,  and  he  was  collecting  up  to  his  last  hours.  He 
cared  least  for  merely  fine  books,  though  he  enjoyed,  no 
one  more  so,  fine  type,  good  binding,  and  all  the  niceties 
of  the  book-fancier.  What  he  liked  were  such  books 
as  were  directly  useful  in  his  work,  and  such  as  he 
liked  to  live  in  the  midst  of;  such,  also,  as  illustrated 
any  great  philosophical,  historical,  or  ecclesiastical  epoch. 
His  collection  of  Greek  Testaments  was,  considering  his 
means,  of  great  extent  and  value,  and  he  had  a  quite 
singular  series  of  books,  pamphlets,  and  documents,  re- 
ferring not  merely  to  his  own  body  —  the  Secession, 
with  all  its  subdivisions  and  reunions  —  but  to  Noncon- 
formity and  Dissent  everywhere,  and,  indeed,  to  human 
liberty,  civil  and  religious,  in  every  form,  —  for  this, 
after  the  great  truths,  duties,  and  expectations  of  his  faith, 
was  the  one  master-passion  of  his  life  —  liberty  in  its 
greatest  sense,  the  largest  extent  of  individual  and  public 
spontaneity  consistent  with  virtue  and  safety.  He  was 
in  this  as  intense,  persistent  in  his  devotion,  as  Sydney, 
Locke,  or  old  Hollis.  For  instance,  his  admiration  of 
Lord  Macaulay  as  a  writer  and  a  man  of  letters,  an  ora- 
tor and  a  statesman,  great  as  it  was,  was  as  nothing  to 
his  gratitude  to  him  for  having  placed  permanently  on 
record,  beyond  all  risk  of  obscuration  or  doubt,  the  doc- 
trine of  1 688  —  the  right  and  power  of  the  English 
people  to  be  their  own  lawgivers,  and  to  appoint  their 
own  magistrates,  of  whom  the  sovereign  is  the  chief. 

have  been  very  old  when  she  penned  it,  the  book  having  been  printed 
as  late  as  1696. 

I  am  extremely  obliged  to  you  for  communicating  to  me  this  new 
and  very  interesting  information. — Believe  me,  my  dear  Sir,  your 
much  obliged  and  faithful  servant, 

Lindsay. 

John  Bbown,  Esq.  M.D. 


168  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

His  conviction  of  the  sole  right  of  God  to  be  Lord  of 
the  conscience,  and  his  sense  of  his  own  absolute  relisr- 
ious  independence  of  every  one  but  his  Maker,  were  the 
two  elements  in  building  up  his  beliefs  on  all  Church 
matters;  they  were  twin  beliefs.  Hence  the  simplicity 
and  thoroughness  of  his  principles.  Sitting  in  the  cen- 
tre, he  commanded  the  circumference.  But  I  am  stray- 
ing out  of  my  parish  into  yours.  I  only  add  to  what 
you  have  said,  that  the  longer  he  lived,  the  more  did  he 
insist  upon  it  being  not  less  true  and  not  less  important, 
that  the  Church  must  not  intermeddle  with  the  State, 
than  that  the  State  must  not  intermeddle  with  the 
Church.  He  used  to  say,  "  Go  down  into  the  world, 
with  all  its  complications  and  confusions,  with  this  doub- 
le-edged weapon,  and  you  can  cut  all  the  composite 
knots  of  Church  and  State."  The  element  of  God  and 
of  eternity  predominates  in  the  religious  more  than  in 
the  civil  affairs  of  men,  and  thus  far  transcends  them  ; 
but  the  principle  of  mutual  independence  is  equally  ap- 
plicable to  each.  All  that  statesmen,  as  such,  have  to 
do  with  religion,  is  to  be  themselves  under  its  power; 
all  that  Christians,  as  such,  have  to  do  with  the  State, 
is  to  be  good  citizens. 

The  fourth  epoch  of  his  personal  life  I  would  date 
from  his  second  marriage.  As  I  said  before,  no  man 
was  ever  happier  in  his  wives.  They  had  much  alike 
in  nature,  —  only  one  could  see  the  Divine  wisdom  of 
his  first  wife  being  his  first,  and  his  second  his  second ; 
each  did  best  in  her  own  place  and  time.  His  mar- 
riage with  Miss  Crum  was  a  source  of  great  happiness 
and  good  not  only  to  himself,  but  to  us  his  first  chil- 
dren. She  had  been  intimately  known  to  us  for  many 
years,  and  was  endeared  to  us  long  before  we  saw  her, 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  169 

by  her  having  been,  as  a  child  and  girl,  a  great  favorite 
of  our  own  mother.  The  families  of  my  grandfather 
Nimmo,  and  of  the  Cruras,  Ewings,  and  Maclaes,  were 
very  intimate.  I  have  heard  my  father  tell,  that  being 
out  at  Thornliebank  with  my  mother,  he  asked  her  to 
take  a  walk  with  him  to  the  Kouken,  a  romantic  water- 
fall  and  glen  up  the  burn.  My  mother  thought  they 
might  take  "  Miss  Margaret "  with  them,  and  so  save 
appearances,  and  with  Miss  Crum,  then  a  child  of  ten, 
holding  my  father's  hand,  away  the  three  went ! 

So  you  may  see  that  no  one  could  be  nearer  to  being 
our  mother ;  and  she  was  curiously  ingenious,  and  com- 
pletely successful  in  gaining  our  affection  and  regard. 
I  have,  as  a  boy,  a  peculiarly  pleasant  remembrance  of 
her,  having  been  at  Thornliebank  when  about  fourteen, 
and  getting  that  impression  of  her  gentle,  kind,  wise, 
calm,  and  happy  nature  —  her  entire  lovableness  — 
which  it  was  our  privilege  to  see  ministering  so  much 
to  my  father's  comfort.  That  fortnight  in  1824  or  1825 
is  still  to  me  like  the  memory  of  some  happy  dream ; 
the  old  library,  the  big  chair  in  which  I  huddled  myself 
up  for  hours  with  the  New  Arabian  Nights,  and  all 
the  old-fashioned  and  unforgotten  books  I  found  there, 
the  ample  old  garden,  the  wonders  of  machinery  and 
skill  going  on  in  "  the  works,"  the  large  water-wheel 
going  its  stately  rounds  in  the  midst  of  its  own  dark 
ness,  the  petrifactions  I  excavated  in  the  bed  of  the 
burn,  ammonites,  etc.,  and  brought  home  to  my  mu- 
seum (!)  ;  the  hospitable  lady  of  the  house,  my  here- 
ditary friend,  dignified,  anxious  and  kind ;  and  above 
all,  her  only  daughter  who  made  me  a  sort  of  p«t,  and 
was  always  contriving  some  unexpected  pleasure,  —  all 
this  feels  to  me  even  now  like  something  out  of  a  book. 


170  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

My  father's  union  with  Miss  Crum  was  not  only  one 
of  the  best  blessings  of  his  life,  —  it  made  him  more 
of  a  blessing  to  others,  than  it  is  likely  he  would  other- 
wise have  been.  By  her  cheerful,  gracious  ways,  her 
love  for  society  as  distinguished  from  company,  her  gift 
of  making  every  one  happy  and  at  ease  when  with  her, 
and  her  tender  compassion  for  all  suffering,  she  in  a 
measure  won  my  father  from  himself  and  his  books,  to 
his  own  great  good,  and  to  the  delight  and  benefit  of  us 
all.  It  was  like  sunshine  and  a  glad  sound  in  the  house. 
She  succeeded  in  what  is  called  "  drawing  out "  the  in- 
veterate solitary.  Moreover,  she  encouraged  and  enabled 
him  to  give  up  a  moiety  of  his  ministerial  labors,  and 
thus  to  devote  himself  to  the  great  work  of  his  later 
years,  the  preparing  for  and  giving  to  the  press  the 
results  of  his  life's  study  of  God's  "Word.  We  owe 
entirely  to  her  that  immense  armamentarium  libertatis, 
the  third  edition  of  his  treatise  on  Civil  Obedience. 

One  other  source  of  great  happiness  to  my  father  by 
this  marriage  was  the  intercourse  he  had  with  the  family 
at  Thornliebank,  deepened  and  endeared  as  this  was  by 
her  unexpected  and  irreparable  loss.  But  on  this  I  must 
not  enlarge,  nor  on  that  death  itself,  the  last  thing  in  the 
world  he  ever  feared  —  leaving  him  once  more,  after  a 
brief  happiness,  and  when  he  had  still  more  reason  to 
hope  that  he  would  have  "  grown  old  with  her,  leaning 
on  her  faithful  bosom."  The  urn  was  again  empty  — ■ 
and  the  only  word  was  vale  !  he  was  once  more  viduua 
bereft. 

"  God  gives  us  love ;  something  to  love 
He  lends  us ;  but,  when  love  is  grown 
To  ripeness,  that  on  which  it  throve 

Falls  off,  and  love  is  left  alone. 
This  is  the  curse  of  time  "  — 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  171 

But  Still  — 

"  'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost, 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all." 

It  was  no  easy  matter  to  get  him  from  home  and  away 
from  his  books.  But  once  off,  he  always  enjoyed  him- 
self, —  especially  in  his  visits  to  Thornliebank,  Busby, 
Crofthead,  Biggar,  and  Melrose.  He  was  very  fond  of 
preaching  on  these  occasions,  and  his  services  were 
always  peculiarly  impressive.  He  spoke  more  slowly 
and  with  less  vehemence  than  in  his  own  pulpit,  and, 
as  I  often  told  him,  with  all  the  more  effect.  When 
driving  about  Biggar,  or  in  the  neighborhood  of  Langrig, 
he  was  full  of  the  past,  showing  how  keenly,  with  all  his 
outward  reserve,  he  had  observed  and  felt.  He  had  a 
quite  peculiar  interest  in  his  three  flocks,  keeping  his 
eye  on  all  their  members,  through  long  years  of  ab- 
sence. 

His  love  for  his  people  and  for  his  "body"  was 
a  special  love ;  and  his  knowledge  of  the  Secession, 
through  all  its  many  divisions  and  unions,  —  his  knowl- 
edge, not  only  of  its  public  history,  with  its  immense 
controversial  and  occasional  literature,  but  of  the  lives 
and  peculiarities  of  its  ministers,  —  was  of  the  most 
minute  and  curious  kind.  He  loved  all  mankind,  and 
specially  such  as  were  of  "  the  household  of  faith  ; "  and 
he  longed  for  the  time  when,  as  there  was  one  Shepherd, 
there  would  be  but  one  sheepfold  ;  but  he  gloried  in  being 
not  only  a  Seceder,  but  Burgher ;  and  he  often  said, 
that  take  them  all  in  all,  he  knew  no  body  of  profess- 
ing Christians  in  any  country  or  in  any  time,  worthier 
of  all  honor  than  that  which  was  founded  by  the  Four 
Brethren,  not  only  as  God-fearing,  God-serving  men,  but 
as  members  of  civil  society ;  men  who  on  every  occasion 


172  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

were  found  on  the  side  of  liberty  and  order,  truth  and 
justice.  He  used  to  say  he  believed  there  was  hardly 
a  Tory  in  the  Synod,  and  that  no  one  but  He  whose 
service  is  perfect  freedom,  knew  the  public  good  done, 
and  the  public  evil  averted,  by  the  lives  and  the  prin- 
ciples, and  when  need  was,  by  the  votes  of  such  men, 
all  of  whom  were  in  the  working  classes,  or  in  the  lower 
half  of  the  middle.  The  great  Whig  leaders  knew  this, 
and  could  always  depend  on  the  Seceders. 

There  is  no  worthy  portrait  of  my  father  in  his  prime. 
I  believe  no  man  was  ever  more  victimized  in  the  way 
of  being  asked  to  "  sit ; "  indeed,  it  was  probably  from 
so  many  of  them  being  of  this  kind,  that  the  opportunity 
of  securing  a  really  good  one  was  lost.  The  best  —  the 
one  portrait  of  his  habitual  expression  —  is  Mr.  Har- 
vey's, done  for  Mr.  Crum  of  Busby :  it  was  taken  when 
he  was  failing,  but  it  is  an  excellent  likeness  as  well  as 
a  noble  picture ;  such  a  picture  as  one  would  buy  with- 
out knowing  anything  of  the  subject.  So  true  it  is, 
that  imaginative  painters,  men  gifted  and  accustomed  to 
render  their  own  ideal  conceptions  in  form  and  color, 
grasp  and  impress  on  their  canvas  the  features  of  real 
men  more  to  the  quick,  more  faithfully  as  to  the  cen- 
tral qualities  of  the  man,  than  px-ofessed  portrait  pain- 
ters. 

Steell's  bust  is  beautiful,  but  it  is  wanting  in  expres- 
sion. Slater's,  though  rude,  is  better.  Angus  Fletcher's 
has  much  of  his  air,  but  is  too  much  like  a  Grecian  God. 
There  is  a  miniature  by  Mrs.  Robertson  of  London,  be- 
longing to  my  sister,  Mrs.  Young,  which  I  always  liked, 
though  more  like  a  gay,  brilliant  French  Abbe,  than  the 
Seceder  minister  of  Rose  Street,  as  he  then  was.  It 
gives,   however,   more  of  his  exquisite   brightness  and 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  173 

spirit,  the  dancing  light  in  his  dark  eyes,  and  his  smile, 
when  pleased  and  desiring  to  please,  than  any  other.  I 
have  a  drawing  by  Mr.  Harvey,  done  from  my  father  for 
his  picture  of  the  Minister's  Visit,  which  I  value  very 
much,  as  giving  the  force  and  depth,  the  momentum,  so 
to  speak,  of  his  serious  look.  He  is  sitting  in  a  cottar's 
house,  reading  the  Bible  to  an  old  bedridden  woman, 
the  farm  servants  gathered  round  to  get  his  word. 

Mungo  Burton  painted  a  good  portrait  which  my 
brother  William  has  ;  from  his  being  drawn  in  a  black 
neckcloth,  and  standing,  he  looks  as  he  sometimes  did, 
more  like  a  member  of  Parliament  than  a  clergyman. 
The  print  from  this  is  good  and  very  scarce.  Of  photo- 
graphs, I  like  D.  0.  Hill's  best,  in  which  he  is  repre- 
sented as  shaking  hands  with  the  (invisible)  Free  Church 
—  it  is  full  of  his  earnest,  cordial  power ;  that  by  Tunny, 
from  which  the  beautiful  engraving  by  Lumb  Stocks  in 
the  Memoir  was  taken,  is  very  like  what  he  was  about 
a,  year  and  a  half  before  his  death.  All  the  other  por- 
traits, as  far  as  I  can  remember,  are  worthless  and  worse, 
missing  entirely  the  true  expression.  He  was  very  dif- 
ficult to  take,  partly  because  he  was  so  full  of  what  may 
be  called  spiritual  beauty,  evanescent,  ever  changing,  and 
requiring  the  highest  kind  of  genius  to  fix  it ;  and  partly 
from  his  own  fault,  for  he  thought  it  was  necessary  to  be 
lively,  or  rather  to  try  to  be  so  to  his  volunteering  artist, 
and  the  consequence  was,  his  giving  them,  as  his  habitual  . 
expression,  one  which  was  rare,  and  in  this  particular 
case  more  made  than  born. 

The  time  when  I  would  have  liked  his  look  to  have 
been  perpetuated,  was  that  of  all  others  the  least  likely, 
or  indeed  possible  ;  —  it  was,  when  after  administering 
the    Sacrament   to  his   people,   and   having   solemnized 


174  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

every  one,  and  been  himself  profoundly  moved  by  that 
Divine,  everlasting  memorial,  he  left  the  elders'  seat  and 
returned  to  the  pulpit,  and  after  giving  out  the  psalm, 
sat  down  wearied  and  satisfied,  filled  with  devout  grati- 
tude to  his  Master  —  his  face  pale,  and  his  dark  eyes 
looking  out  upon  us  all,  his  whole  countenance  radiant 
and  subdued.  Any  likeness  of  him  in  this  state,  more 
like  that  of  the  proto-martyr,  when  his  face  was  as  that 
of  an  angel,  than  anything  I  ever  beheld,  would  have 
made  one  feel  what  it  is  so  impossible  otherwise  to  con- 
vey, —  the  mingled  sweetness,  dignity,  and  beauty  of  his 
face.  When  it  was  winter,  and  the  church  darkening, 
and  the  lights  at  the  pulpit  were  lighted  so  as  to  fall 
upon  his  face  and  throw  the  rest  of  the  vast  assemblage 
into  deeper  shadow,  the  effect  of  his  countenance  was 
something  never  to  forget. 

He  was  more  a  man  of  power  than  of  genius  in  the 
ordinary  sense.  His  imagination  was  not  a  primary 
power ;  it  was  not  originative,  though  in  a  quite  un- 
common degree  receptive,  having  the  capacity  of  realiz- 
ing the  imaginations  of  others,  and  through  them  body- 
ing forth  the  unseen.  When  exalted  and  urged  by  the 
understanding,  and  heated  by  the  affections,  it  burst  out 
with  great  force,  but  always  as  servant,  not  master. 
But  if  he  had  no  one  faculty  that  might  be,  to  use  the 
loose  words  of  common  speech,  original,  he  was  so  as  a 
whole,  —  such  a  man  as  stood  alone.  No  one  ever  mis- 
took his  look,  or  would,  had  they  been  blind,  have  mis 
taken  his  voice  or  words,  for  those  of  any  one  else,  01 
any  one  else's  for  his. 

His  mental  characteristics,  if  I  may  venture  on  such 

ground,  were  clearness  and  vigor,  intensity,  fervor,1  con< 

1  This  earnestness  of  nature  pervaded  all  his  exercises.    A  man  of 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  175 

centration,  penetration,  and  perseverance,  —  more  of 
depth  than  width.1     The  moral  conditions  under  which 

great  capacity  and  culture,  with  a  head  like  Benjamin  Franklin's,  an 
avowed  unbeliever  in  Christianity,  came  every  Sunday  afternoon,  for 
many  years,  to  hear  him.  I  remember  his  look  well,  us  if  interested, 
but  not  impressed.  He  was  often  asked  by  his  friends  why  he  went 
when  he  didn't  believe  one  word  of  what  he  heard.  "  Neither  I  do, 
but  I  like  to  hear  and  to  see  a  man  earnest  once  a  week,  about  any- 
thing." It  is  related  of  David  Hume,  that  having  heard  my  great- 
grandfather preach,  he  said,  "That's  the  man  for  me,  he  means  what 
he  says,  he  speaks  as  if  Jesus  Christ  was  at  his  elbow." 

1  The  following  note  from  the  pen  to  which  we  owe  "  St.  Paul's 
Thorn  in  the  Flesh"  is  admirable,  both  for  its  reference  to  my  father, 
and  its  own  beauty  and  truth. 

"One  instance  of  his  imperfect  discernment  of  associations  of 
thought  that  were  not  of  a  purely  logical  character  was  afforded,  we 
used  to  think,  by  the  decided  and  almost  contemptuous  manner  in 
which  he  always  rejected  the  theory  of  what  is  called  the  double  in- 
terpretation of  prophecy.  This,  of  course,  is  not  the  place  to  discuss 
whether  he  was  absolutely  right  or  wrong  in  his  opinion.  The  sub- 
ject, however,  is  one  of  somewhat  curious  interest,  and  it  has  also  a 
strictly  literary  as  well  as  a  theological  aspect,  and  what  we  have  to 
say  about  it  shall  relate  exclusively  to  the  former.  When  Dr.  Brown 
then  said,  as  he  was  accustomed  in  his  strong  way  to  do,  that  'if 
prophecy  was  capable  of  two  senses,  it  was  impossible  it  could  have 
any  sense  at  all,'  it  is  plain,  we  think,  that  he  forgot  the  specific  char- 
acter of  prophetic  literature,  viz.,  its  being  in  the  highest  degree  poetic. 
Now  every  one  knows  that  poetry  of  a  veiy  elevated  cast  almost  in- 
variably possesses  great  breadth,  variety,  we  may  say  multiplicity  of 
meaning.  Its  very  excellence  consists  in  its  being  capable  of  two, 
three,  or  many  meanings  and  applications.  Take,  for  example,  these 
familiar  lines  in  the  '  Midsummer  Night's  Dream : '  — 

'  Ah  me  !  for  aught  that  ever  I  could  read, 
Could  ever  hear  by  tale  or  history, 
The  course  of  true  love  never  did  run  smooth : 
But  either  it  wa9  different  in  blood, 
Or  else  misgraffed  in  respect  of  years, 
Or  else  it  stood  upon  the  choice  of  friends  ; 
Or  if  there  were  a  sympathy  in  choice, 
War,  death,  or  sickness  did  lay  siege  to  it, 
Making  it  momentary  as  a  sound, 
Swift  as  a  shadow,  short  as  any  dream, 


176  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

he  lived  were  the  love,  the  pursuit,  and  the  practice  of 
truth  in  everything ;  strength  and  depth,  rather  than  ex- 
ternal warmth  of  affection ;  fidelity  to  principles  and  to 
friends.  He  used  often  to  speak  of  the  moral  obligation 
laid  upon  every  man  to  think  truly,  as  well  as  to  speak 
and  act  truly,  and  said  that  much  intellectual  demoraliza- 
tion and  ruin  resulted  from  neglecting  this.  He  was 
absolutely  tolerant  of  all  difference  of  opinion,  so  that  it 
was  sincere  ;  and  this  was  all  the  more  remarkable  from 
his  being  the  opposite  of  an  indifferentist,  being  very 
strong  in  his  own  convictions,  holding  them  keenly,  even 

Brief  as  the  lightning  in  the  collied  night, 
That  in  a  spleen  unfolds  both  heaven  and  earth, 
And  ere  a  man  hath  power  to  say  "  Behold  !  " 
The  jaws  of  darkness  do  devour  it  up  ; 
So  quick  bright  things  come  to  confusion.' 

We  remember  once  quoting  these  lines  to  a  lady,  and  being  rather 
taken  aback  by  her  remark,  'They  are  very  beautiful,  but  I  don't 
think  they  are  true.'  We  really  had  forgot  for  the  moment  the 
straightforward,  matter-of-fact  sense  of  which  they  are  capable,  and 
were  not  adverting  to  the  possibility  of  their  being  understood  to 
mean  that  —  nothing  but  love-crosses  are  going,  and  that  no  tolerable 
amount  of  comfort  or  happiness  is  to  be  found  in  the  life  matrimonial, 
or  in  any  of  the  approaches  towards  it.  Every  intelligent  student  of 
Shakspeare's,  however,  will  at  once  feel  that  the  poet's  mind  speedily 
passes  away  from  the  idea  with  which  he  starts,  and  becomes  merged 
in  a  far  wider  theme,  viz.,  in  the  disenchantment  to  which  all  lofty 
imaginations  are  liable,  the  disappointment  to  which  all  extravagant 
earthly  hopes  and  wishes  are  doomed.  This,  in  fact,  is  distinctly  ex- 
pressed in  the  last  line,  and  in  this  sense  alone  can  the  words  be  re- 
garded as  at  all  touching  or  impressive.  Sudden  expansions  and 
transitions  of  thought,  then,  are  nothing  more  than  what  is  common, 
to  all  poetry;  and  when  we  find  the  Hebrew  bards,  in  their  prophetic 
songs,  mingling  in  the  closest  conjunction  the  anticipations  of  the 
glories  of  Solomon's  reign,  or  the  happy  prospects  of  a  return  from 
Babylon,  with  the  higher  glory  and  happiness  of  Messiah's  advent, 
euch  transitions  of  thought  are  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  ordinary 
laws  of  poetry,  and  ought  not  to  perplex  even  the  most  unimaginative 
student  of  the  Bible." 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  177 

passionately,  while  from  the  structure  of  his  mind,  he 
was  somehow  deficient  in  comprehending,  much  less  of 
sympathizing  with  the  opinions  of  men  who  greatly  dif- 
fered from  him.  This  made  his  homage  to  entire  free- 
dom of  thought  all  the  more  genuine  and  rare.  In  the 
region  of  theological  thought  he  was  scientific,  systematic, 
and  authoritative,  rather  than  philosophical  and  specula- 
tive. He  held  so  strongly  that  the  Christian  religion 
was  mainly  a  religion  of  facts,  that  he  perhaps  allowed 
too  little  to  its  also  being  a  philosophy  that  was  ready 
to  meet,  out  of  its  own  essence  and  its  ever  unfolding 
powers,  any  new  form  of  unbelief,  disbelief,  or  misbelief, 
and  must  front  itself  to  them  as  they  moved  up. 

With  devotional  feeling  —  with  everything  that  showed 
reverence  and  godly  fear  —  he  cordialized  wherever  and 
in  whomsoever  it  was  found, —  Pagan  or  Christian,  Ro- 
manist or  Protestant,  bond  or  free  ;  and  while  he  dis- 
liked, and  had  indeed  a  positive  antipathy  to  intellectual 
mysticism,  he  had  a  great  knowledge  of  and  relish  for 
such  writers  as  Dr.  Henry  More,  Culverwel,  Scougall, 
Madame  Guyon,  whom  (besides  their  other  qualities) 
I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  call  affectionate  mystics, 
and  for  such  poets  as  Herbert  and  Vaughan,  whose 
poetry  was  pious,  and  their  piety  poetic.  As  I  have 
said,  he  was  perhaps  too  impatient  of  all  obscure  think- 
ing, from  not  considering  that  on  certain  subjects,  neces- 
sarily in  their  substance,  and  on  the  skirts  of  all  subjects, 
obscurity  and  vagueness,  difficulty  and  uncertainty,  are 
inherent,  and  must  therefore  appear  in  their  treatment. 
Men  who  rejoiced  in  making  clear  things  obscure,  and 
plain  things  the  reverse,  he  could  not  abide,  and  spoke 
with  some  contempt  of  those  who  were  original  merely 
from  their  standing  on  their  heads,  and  tall  from  walk- 
12 


178  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

ing  upon  stilts.  As  you  have  truly  said,  his  character 
mellowed  and  toned  down  in  his  later  years,  without 
in  any  way  losing  its  own  individuality,  and  its  clear, 
vigorous,  unflinching  perception  of  and  addiction  to  prin- 
ciples. 

His  affectionate  ways  with  his  students  were  often 
very  curious :  he  contrived  to  get  at  their  hearts,  and 
find  out  all  their  family  and  local  specialities,  in  a  sort 
of  short-hand  way,  and  he  never  forgot  them  in  after- 
life ;  and  watching  him  with  them  at  tea,  speaking  his 
mind  freely  and  often  jocularly  upon  all  sorts  of  subjects, 
one  got  a  glimpse  of  that  union  of  opposites  which  made 
him  so  much  what  he  was  —  he  gave  out  far  more  lib- 
erally to  them  the  riches  of  his  learning  and  the  deep 
thoughts  of  his  heart,  than  he  ever  did  among  his  full- 
grown  brethren.  It  was  like  the  flush  of  an  Arctic  sum- 
mer, blossoming  all  over,  out  of  and  into  the  stillness, 
the  loneliness^,  and  the  chill  rigor  of  winter.  Though 
authoritative  in  his  class  without  any  effort,  he  was  in- 
dulgent to  everything  but  conceit,  slovenliness  of  mind 
and  body,  irreverence,  and  above  all  handling  the  "Word 
of  God  deceitfully.  On  one  occasion  a  student  having 
delivered  in  the  Hall  a  discourse  tinged  with  Armin- 
ianism,  he  said,  "  That  may  be  the  gospel  according  to 
Dr.  Macknight,  or  the  gospel  according  to  Dr.  Taylor 
of  Norwich,  but  it  is  not  the  gospel  according  to  the 
Apostle  Paul ;  and  if  I  thought  the  sentiments  expressed 
were  his  own,  if  I  had  not  thought  he  has  taken  his 
thoughts  from  commentators  without  carefully  consider- 
ing them,  I  would  think  it  my  duty  to  him  and  to  the 
church  to  make  him  no  longer  a  student  of  divinity 
here."  He  was  often  unconsciously  severe,  from  his 
Baying   exactly  what  he   felt.      On  a  student's   ending 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  179 

his  discourse,  his  only  criticism  was,  "  The  strongest 
characteristic  of  this  discourse  is  weakness,"  and  feel- 
ing that  this  was  really  all  he  had  to  say,  he  ended. 
A  young  gentleman  on  very  good  terms  with  himself, 
stood  up  to  pray  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and 
among  other  things  he  put  up  a  petition  he  might  "  be 
delivered  from  the  fear  of  man,  which  bringeth  a  snare ; " 
my  father's  only  remark  was  that  there  was  part  of  his 
prayer  which  seemed  to  be  granted  before  it  was  asked. 
But  he  was  always  unwilling  to  criticize  prayer,  feeling 
it  to  be  too  sacred,  and,  as  it  were,  beyond  his  province, 
except  to  deliver  the  true  principles  of  all  prayer,  which 
he  used  to  say  were  admirably  given  in  the  Shorter  Cat- 
echism — "  Prayer  is  an  offering  up  of  the  desires  of 
the  heart  to  God,  for  things  agreeable  to  his  will,  in  the 
name  of  Christ ;  with  confession  of  our  sins,  and  thank- 
ful acknowledgment  of  his  mercies." 

For  the  "  heroic  "  old  man  of  Haddington  my  father 
had  a  peculiar  reverence,  as  indeed  we  all  have  —  as  well 
we  may.  He  was  our  king,  the  founder  of  our  dynasty ; 
we  dated  from  him,  and  he  was  "  hedged  "  accordingly 
by  a  certain  sacredness  or  "  divinity."  I  well  remember 
with  what  surprise  and  pride  I  found  myself  asked  by 
a  blacksmith's  wife  in  a  remote  hamlet  among  the  hop- 
gardens of  Kent,  if  I  was  "  the  son  of  the  Self-inter- 
preting Bible."  I  possess,  as  an  heirloom,  the  New  Tes- 
tament which  my  father  fondly  regarded  as  the  one  his 
grandfather,  when  a  herd  laddie,  got  from  the  Professor 
who  heard  him  ask  for  it,  and  promised  him  it  if  he 
could  read  a  verse  ;  and  he  has  in  his  beautiful  small 
hand  written  in  it  what  follows  :  "  He  (John  Brown  of 
Haddington)  had  now  acquired  so  much  of  Greek  as 
encouraged   him  to  hope   that   he   might  at  length  be 


180  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

prepared  to  reap  the  richest  of  all  rewards  which  classi* 
cal  learning  could  confer  on  him,  the  capacity  of  reading 
in  the  original  tongue  the  blessed  New  Testament  of 
our  Lord  and  Saviour.  Full  of  this  hope,  he  became 
anxious  to  possess  a  copy  of  the  invaluable  volume.  One 
night,  having  committed  the  charge  of  his  sheep  to  a 
companion,  he  set  out  on  a  midnight  journey  to  St. 
Andrews,  a  distance  of  twenty-four  miles.  He  reached 
his  destination  in  the  morning,  and  went  to  the  book- 
seller's shop  asking  for  a  copy  of  the  Greek  New  Tes- 
tament. The  master  of  the  shop,  surprised  at  such  a 
request  from  a  shepherd  boy,  was  disposed  to  make  game 
of  him.  Some  of  the  professors  coming  into  the  shop 
questioned  the  lad  about  his  employment  and  studies. 
After  hearing  his  tale,  one  of  them  desired  the  book- 
seller to  bring  the  volume.  He  did  so,  and  drawing  it 
down,  said,  '  Boy,  read  this,  and  you  shall  have  it  for 
nothing.'  The  boy  did  so,  acquitted  himself  to  the  ad- 
miration of  his  judges,  and  carried  off  his  Testament, 
and  when  the  evening  arrived,  was  studying  it  in  the 
midst  of  his  flock  on  the  braes  of  Abernethy."  —  Me- 
moir of  Rev.  John  Brown  of  Haddington,  by  Rev.  J.  B. 
Patterson. 

"  There  is  reason  to  believe  this  is  the  New  Testa- 
ment referred  to.  The  name  on  the  opposite  page  was 
written  on  the  fly-leaf.  It  is  obviously  the  writing  of 
a  boy,  and  bears  a  resemblance  to  Mr.  Brown's  hand- 
writing in  mature  life.  It  is  imperfect,  wanting  a  great 
part  of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew.  The  autograph  at 
the  end  is  that  of  his  son,  Thomas,  when  a  youth  at 
college,  afterwards  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Brown  of  Dal- 
keith. —  J.  B." 

I  doubt  not  my  father  regarded  this  little  worn  old 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  181 

book,  the  sword  of  the  Spirit  which  his  ancestor  so  nobly 
won,  and  wore,  and  warred  with,  with  not  less  honest 
veneration  and  pride  than  does  his  dear  friend  James 
Douglas  of  Cavers  the  Percy  pennon  borne  away  at 
Otterbourne.  When  I  read,  in  Uncle  "William's  admi- 
rable Life  of  his  father,  his  own  simple  story  of  his 
early  life  —  his  loss  of  father  and  mother  before  he 
was  eleven,  his  discovering  (as  true  a  discovery  as  Dr. 
Young's  of  the  characters  of  the  Rosetta  stone,  or  Raw- 
linson's  of  the  cuneiform  letters)  the  Greek  characters, 
his  defence  of  himself  against  the  astonishing  and  base 
charge  of  getting  his  learning  from  the  devil  (that  shrewd 
personage  would  not  have  employed  him  on  the  Greek 
Testament),  his  eager,  indomitable  study,  his  running 
miles  to  and  back  again  to  hear  a  sermon  after  folding 
his  sheep  at  noon,  his  keeping  his  family  creditably  on 
never  more  than  £50,  and  for  long  on  £40  a  year,  giving 
largely  in  charity,  and  never  wanting,  as  he  said,  "  lying 
money  "  —  when  I  think  of  all  this,  I  feel  what  a  strong, 
independent,  manly  nature  he  must  have  had.  We  all 
know  his  saintly  character,  his  devotion  to  learning,  and 
to  the  work  of  preaching  and  teaching;  but  he  seems 
to  have  been,  like  most  complete  men,  full  of  humor 
and  keen  wit.  Some  of  his  snell  sayings  are  still  re- 
membered. A  lad  of  an  excitable  temperament  waited 
on  him,  and  informed  him  he  wished  to  be  a  preacher 
of  the  gospel.  My  great-grandfather,  finding  him  as 
weak  in  intellect  as  he  was  strong  in  conceit,  advised 
him  to  continue  in  his  present  vocation.  The  young 
man  said,  "  But  I  wish  to  preach  and  glorify  God." 
'  My  young  friend,  a  man  may  glorify  God  making 
broom  besoms ;  stick  to  your  trade,  and  glorify  God  by 
vour  walk  and  conversation." 


182  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

The  late  Dr.  Husband  of  Dunfermline  called  on  him 
when  he  was  preparing  to  set  out  for  Giflford,  and  was 
beginning  to  ask  him  some  questions  as  to  the  place 
grace  held  in  the  Divine  economy.  "  Come  away  wi' 
me,  and  I'll  expound  that ;  but  when  I'm  speaking,  look 
you  after  my  feet."  They  got  upon  a  rough  bit  of  com- 
mon, and  the  eager  and  full-minded  old  man  was  in  the 
midst  of  his  unfolding  the  Divine  scheme,  and  his  stu- 
dent was  drinking  in  his  words,  and  forgetting  his  part 
of  the  bargain.  His  master  stumbled  and  fell,  and  get- 
ting up,  somewhat  sharply  said,  "  James,  the  grace  o' 
God  can  do  much,  but  it  canna  gi'e  a  man  common 
sense  ; "  which  is  as  good  theology  as  sense. 

A  scoffing  blacksmith  seeing  him  jogging  up  to  a 
house  near  the  smithy  on  his  pony,  which  was  halting, 
said  to  him,  "  Mr.  Brown,  ye're  in  the  Scripture  line  the 
day  —  '  the  legs  o'  the  lame  are  not  equal.'  "  "  So  is  a 
parable  in  the  mouth  of  a  fool." 

On  his  coming  to  Haddington,  there  was  one  man  who 
held  out  against  his  "  call."  Mr.  Brown  meeting  him  when 
they  could  not  avoid  each  other,  the  non-content  said,  "  Ye 
see,  sir,  I  canna  say  what  I  dinna  think,  and  I  think 
ye're  ower  young  and  inexperienced  for  this  charge." 
"  So  I  think  too,  David,  but  it  would  never  do  for  you 
and  me  to  gang  in  the  face  o'  the  hale  congregation  !  " 

The  following  is  a  singular  illustration  of  the  prevail- 
ing dark  and  severe  tone  of  the  religious  teaching  of 
that  time,  and  also  of  its  strength  :  —  A  poor  old  woman, 
of  great  worth  and  excellent  understanding,  in  whose 
conversation  Mr.  Brown  took  much  pleasure,  was  on  her 
death-bed.  Wishing  to  try  her  faith,  he  said  to  her, 
"  Janet,  what  would  you  say  if,  after  all  He  has  done 
for  you,  God  should  let  you  drop  into  hell  ?  "     "  E'en's 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  183 

(even  as)  he  likes ;  if  he  does,  Hell  lose  mair  than  TH 
do."  There  is  something  not  less  than  sublime  in  this 
reply. 

Than  my  grandfather  and  u  Uncle  Ebenezer,"  no  two 
brothers  could  be  more  different  in  nature  or  more  united 
in  affection.  My  grandfather  was  a  man  of  great  natu- 
ral good  sense,  well  read  and  well  knowledged,  easy  but 
not  indolent,  never  overflowing  but  never  empty,  homely 
but  dignified,  and  fuller  of  love  to  all  sentient  creatures 
than  any  other  human  being  I  ever  knew.  I  had,  when 
a  boy  of  ten,  two  rabbits,  Oscar  and  Livia :  why  so 
named  is  a  secret  I  have  lost ;  perhaps  it  was  an  Ossi- 
anic  union  of  the  Roman  with  the  Gael.  Oscar  was  a 
broad-nosed,  manly,  rather  brusque  husband,  who  used  to 
snort  when  angry,  and  bite  too ;  Livia  was  a  thin-faced, 
meek,  and  I  fear,  deceitfullish  wife,  who  could  smile,  and 
then  bite.  One  evening  I  had  lifted  both  these  worthies, 
by  the  ears  of  course,  and  was  taking  them  from  their 
clover  to  their  beds,  when  my  grandfather,  who  had  been 
walking  out  in  the  cool  of  the  evening,  met  me.  I  had 
just  kissed  the  two  creatures,  out  of  mingled  love  to 
them,  and  pleasure  at  having  caught  them  without  much 
trouble.  He  took  me  by  the  chin,  and  kissed  me,  and 
then  Oscar  and  Livia  1  "Wonderful  man,  I  thought,  and 
still  think !  doubtless  he  had  seen  me  in  my  private  fond- 
ness, and  wished  to  please  me. 

He  was  forever  doing  good  in  his  quiet  yet  earnest  way. 
Not  only  on  Sunday  when  he  preached  solid  gospel  ser- 
mons, full  of  quaint  familiar  expressions,  such  as  I  fear 
few  of  my  readers  could  take  up,  full  of  solemn,  affec- 
tionate aj  peals,  full  of  his  own  simplicity  and  love,  the 
Monday  also  found  him  ready  with  his  every-day  gospel. 
If  he  met  a  drover  from  Lochaber  who  had  crossed  the 


184  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

Campsie  Hills,  and  was  making  across  Carnwath  Moor 
to  the  Calstane  Slap,  and  thence  into  England  by  the 
drove-rode,  he  accosted  him  with  a  friendly  smile,  — 
gave  him  a  reasonable  tract,  and  dropped  into  him  some 
words  of  Divine  truth.  He  was  thus  continually  doing 
good.  Go  where  he  might,  he  had  his  message  to  every 
one  ;  to  a  servant  lass,  to  a  poor  wanderer  on  the  bleak 
streets,  to  gentle  and  simple  —  he  flowed  forever  pleno 
rivo. 

Uncle  Ebenezer,  on  the  other  hand,  flowed  per  saltum  ; 
he  was  always  good  and  saintly,  but  he  was  great  once  a 
week  ;  six  days  he  brooded  over  his  message,  was  silent, 
withdrawn,  self-involved  ;  on  the  Sabbath,  that  downcast, 
almost  timid  man,  who  shunned  men,  the  instant  he  was 
in  the  pulpit,  stood  up  a  son  of  thunder.  Such  a  voice  ! 
such  a  piercing  eye  !  such  an  inevitable  forefinger,  held 
out  trembling  with  the  terrors  of  the  Lord ;  such  a 
power  of  asking  questions  and  letting  them  fall  deep 
into  the  hearts  of  his  hearers,  and  then  answering  them 
himself,  with  an  "  ah,  sirs  ! "  that  thrilled  and  quivered 
from  him  to  them. 

I  remember  his  astonishing  us  all  with  a  sudden  burst 
It  was  a  sermon  upon  the  apparent  plus  of  evil  in  this 
world,  and  he  had  driven  himself  and  us  all  to  despair  — > 
so  much  sin,  so  much  misery  —  when,  taking  advantage 
of  the  chapter  he  had  read,  the  account  of  the  uproar  at 
Ephesus  in  the  Theatre,  he  said,  "  Ah,  sirs  !  what  if 
some  of  the  men  who,  for  '  about  the  space  of  two 
hours,'  cried  out,  '  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,' 
have  for  the  space  of  eighteen  hundred  years  and  more 
been  crying  day  and  night,  '  Great  and  marvellous  are 
thy  works,  Lord  God  Almighty ;  just  and  true  are 
all  thv   ways,  thou  King  of  saints ;    who  shall  not  fear 


MY   FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  185 

thee,  0  Lord,  and  glorify  thy  name  ?  for  thou  only  art 
holy.' " 

You  have  doubtless  heard  of  the  story  of  Lord 
Brougham  going  to  hear  him.  It  is  very  characteris- 
tic, and  as  I  had  it  from  Mrs.  Cuninghame,  who  was 
present,  I  may  be  allowed  to  tell  it.  Brougham  and 
Denman  were  on  a  visit  to  James  Stuart  of  Dunearn, 
about  the  time  of  the  Queen's  trial.  They  had  asked 
Stuart  where  they  should  go  to  church ;  he  said  he 
would  take  them  to  a  Seceder  minister  at  Inverkeith- 
ing.  They  went,  and  as  Mr.  Stuart  had  described  the 
saintly  old  man,  Brougham  said  he  would  like  to  be  in- 
troduced to  him,  and  arriving  before  service  time,  Mr. 
Stuart  called,  and  left  a  message  that  some  gentlemen 
wished  to  see  him.  The  answer  was  that  "Maister" 
Brown  saw  nobody  before  divine  worship.  He  then 
sent  in  Brougham  and  Denman's  names.  "  Mr.  Brown's 
compliments  to  Mr.  Stuart,  and  he  sees  nobody  before 
sex-mon,"  and  in  a  few  minutes  out  came  the  stooping 
shy  old  man,  and  passed  them,  unconscious  of  their  pres- 
ence. They  sat  in  the  front  gallery,  and  he  preached  a 
faithful  sermon,  full  of  fire  and  of  native  force.  They 
came  away  greatly  moved,  and  each  wrote  to  Lord 
Jeffrey  to  lose  not  a  week  in  coming  to  hear  the  greatest 
natural  orator  they  had  ever  heard.  Jeffrey  came  next 
Sunday,  and  often  after  declared  he  never  heard  such 
words,  such  a  sacred,  untaught  gift  of  speech.  Nothing 
was  more  beautiful  than  my  father's  admiration  and  emo- 
tion when  listening  to  his  uncle's  rapt  passages,  or  than 
his  childlike  faith  in  my  father's  exegetical  prowess.  He 
used  to  have  a  list  of  difficult  passages  ready  for  "  my 
nephew,"  and  the  moment  the  oracle  gave  a  decision,  the 
old  man  asked  him  to  repeat  it,  and  then  took  a  perma- 


186  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

nent  note  of  it,  and  would  assuredly  preach  it  some  day 
with  his  own  proper  unction  and  power.     One  story  of 
him  I  must  give ;  my  father,  who  heard  it  not  long  be- 
fore his  own  death,  was  delighted  with  it,  and  for  some 
days  repeated  it  to  every  one.     Uncle  Ebenezer,  with  all 
his  mildness  and  general  complaisance,  was,  like  most  of 
the  Browns,  tenax  propositi,  firm  to  obstinacy.     He  had 
established  a  week-day  sermon  at  the  North  Ferry,  about 
two  miles  from  his  own  town,  Inverkeithing.     It  was,  I 
think,  on  the  Tuesdays.     It  was  winter,  and  a  wild,  drift- 
ing, and  dangerous  day ;  his  daughters  —  his  wife  was 
dead  —  besought  him  not  to  go  ;  he  smiled  vaguely,  but 
continued  getting  into  his  big-coat.     Nothing  would  stay 
him,  and  away  he  and  the  pony  stumbled  through  the 
dumb  and  blinding  snow.     He  was  half-way  on  his  jour- 
ney, and  had  got  into  the  sermon  he  was  going  to  preach, 
and  was  utterly   insensible  to  the  outward   storm :   his 
pony  getting  its  feet  balled,  staggered  about,  and  at  last 
upset  his  master  and  himself  into  the  ditch  at  the  road- 
side.    The  feeble,  heedless,  rapt  old  man  might  have 
perished  there,  had  not  some  carters,  bringing  up  whisky 
casks  from  the  Ferry,  seen  the  catastrophe,  and  rushed 
up,  raising  him,  and  dichtirf  him,  with  much  commisera- 
tion and  blunt  speech  —  "  Puir  auld  man,  what  brocht 
ye  here  in  sic  a  day  ?  "     There  they  were,  a  rough  crew, 
surrounding  the   saintly  man,  some  putting  on  his  hat, 
sorting  and  cheering  him,  and  others  knocking  the  balls 
off  the  pony's  feet,  and  stuffing  them  with  grease.     He 
was  most  polite  and  grateful,  and  one  of  these  cordial 
ruffians  having  pierced  a  cask,  brought  him  a  horn  of 
whisky,  and  said,  "  Tak  that,  it  '11  hearten  ye."     He  took 
the  horn,  and  bowing  to  them,  said,  "  Sirs,  let  us  give 
thanks!"  and  there,  by  the  road-side,  in  the  drift  and 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  187 

slorm,  with  these  wild  fellows,  he  asked  a  blessing  ou  it, 
and  for  his   kind   deliverers,  and  took  a  tasting  of  the 
horn.     The  men  cried  like  children.     They  lifted  him 
on  his   pony,  one  going  with  him,  and  when  the  rest 
arrived  in  Inverkeithing,  they  repeated  the  story  to  every- 
body, and  broke  down  in  tears  whenever  they  came  to 
the  blessing.     "And  to  think  o'  askin'  a  blessin'  on  a 
tass  o'  whisky  ! "     Next  Presbytery  day,  after  the  or- 
dinary business  was  over,  he  rose  up  —  he  seldom  spoke 
—  and  said,  "  Moderator,  I  have  something  personal  to 
myself  to  say.      I  have  often  said,  that  real  kindness 
belongs   only  to   true   Christians,  but"  —  and   then   he 
told  the  story  of  these  men  ;  "  but  more  true  kindness 
I  never  experienced  than  from  these  lads.     They  may 
have  had  the  grace  of  God,  I  don't  know  ;  but  I  never 
mean  again  to  be  so  positive  in  speaking  of  this  matter." 
"When  he  was  on  a  missionary  tour  in  the  north,  he 
one  morning  met  a  band  of  Highland  shearers  on  their 
way  to  the  harvest ;  he  asked  them  to  stop  and  hear  the 
word  of  God.     They  said  they   could  not,  as  they  had 
their  wages  to  work  for.     He  offered  them  what  they 
said   they  would  lose ;  to  this  they  agreed,  and  he  paid 
them,  and  closing  his  eyes  engaged  in  prayer ;  when  he 
had  ended,  he  looked  up,  and  his  congregation  had  van- 
ished !     His  shrewd  brother  Thomas,  to  whom  he  com- 
plained of  this  faithlessness,  said,  "  Eben,  the  next  time 
ye  pay  folk  to  hear  you  preach,  keep  your  eyes  open, 
and  pay  them  when  you   are  done."     I  remember,  on 
another  occasion,  in    Bristo    Church,  with  an  immense 
audience,  he  had  been  going  over  the  Scripture  accounts 
of  great  sinners  repenting  and  turning  to  God,  repeat- 
ing their  names,  from  Manasseh  onwards.  ,  He  seemed 
to  have  closed  the  record,  when,  fixing  his  eyes  on  the 


188  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

end  of  the  central  passage,  he  called  out  abruptly,  "  1 
6ee  a  man ! "  Every  one  looked  to  that  point  —  "I  see 
a  man  of  Tarsus ;  and  he  says,  Make  mention  of  me ! " 
It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  discourses  of  "  Uncle 
Ebenezer,"  with  these  abrupt  appeals  and  sudden  starts, 
were  unwritten  or  extempore  ;  they  were  carefully  com- 
posed and  written  out,  —  only  these  flashes  of  thought 
and  passion  came  on  him  suddenly  when  writing,  and 
were  therefore  quite  natural  when  delivered  —  they 
came  on  him  again. 

The  Rev.  John  Belfrage,  M.  D.,  had  more  power  over 
my  father's  actions  and  his  relations  to  the  world,  than 
any  other  of  his  friends :  over  his  thoughts  and  con- 
victions proper,  not  much,  —  few  living  men  had,  and 
even  among  the  mighty  dead,  he  called  no  man  master. 
He  used  to  say  that  the  three  master  intellects  devoted 
to  the  study  of  divine  truth  since  the  apostles,  were 
Augustine,  Calvin,  and  Jonathan  Edwards ;  but  that  even 
they  were  only"  primi  inter  pares,  —  this  by  the  bye. 

On  all  that  concerned  his  outward  life  as  a  public 
teacher,  as  a  father,  and  as  a  member  of  society,  he  con- 
sulted Dr.  Belfrage,  and  was  swayed  greatly  by  his  judg- 
ment, as,  for  instance,  the  choice  of  a  profession  for  my- 
self, his  second  marriage,  etc.  He  knew  him  to  be  his 
true  friend,  and  not  only  wise  and  honest,  but  preemi- 
nently a  man  of  affairs,  capax  rerum.  Dr.  Belfrage  was 
a  great  man  in  posse,  if  ever  I  saw  one,  —  "a  village 
Hampden."  Greatness  was  of  his  essence  ;  nothing  paltry, 
nothing  secondary,  nothing  untrue.  Large  in  body,  large 
and  handsome  in  face,  lofty  in  manner  to  his  equals  or 
superiors  ;  *  homely,  familiar,  cordial  with  the  young  and 

1  On  one  octasion,  Mr.  Hall  of  Kelso,  an  excellent  but  very  odd 
man,  in  whom  the  ego  was  very  strong,  and  who,  if  he  had  been  a 


MY   FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  189 

the  poor,  —  I  never  met  with  a  more  truly  royal  nature 
—  more  native  and  endued  to  rule,  guide,  and  benefit 
mankind.  He  was  forever  scheming  for  the  good  of 
others,  and  chiefly  in  the  way  of  helping  them  to  help 
themselves.  From  a  curious  want  of  ambition  —  his 
desire  for  advancement  was  for  that  of  his  friends,  not 
for  his  own,  and  here  he  was  ambitious  and  zealous 
enough, — from  non-concentration  of  his  faculties  in  early 
life,  and  from  an  affection  of  the  heart  which  ultimately 
killed  him  —  it  was  too  big  for  his  body,  and,  under  the 
relentless  hydrostatic  law,  at  last  shattered  the  taber- 
nacle it  moved,  like  a  steam-engine  too  powerful  for  the 
vessel  it  finds  itself  in,  —  his  mental  heart  also  was  too 
big  for  his  happiness,  —  from  these  causes,  along  with 
a  love  for  gardening,  which  was  a  passion,  and  an  in- 
herited competency,  which  took  away  what  John  Hunter 
calls  "the  stimulus  of  necessity,"  you  may  understand 
how  this  remarkable  man  —  instead  of  being  a  Prime 
Minister,  a  Lord  Chancellor,  or  a  Dr.  Gregory,  a  George 
Stephenson,  or  likeliest  of  all,  a  John  Howard,  with- 
out some  of  his  weaknesses,  lived  and  died  minister  of 
the  small  congregation  of  Slateford,  near  Edinburgh 
It  is  also  true  that  he  was  a  physician,  and  an  energetic 
and  successful  one,  and  got  rid  of  some  of  his  love  of 
doing  good  to  and  managing  human  beings  in  this 
way;  he  was  also  an  oracle  in  his  district,  to  whom 
many  had  the  wisdom  to  go  to  take  as  well  as  ask 
advice,  and  who  was  never  weary  of  entering  into  the 
most   minute  details,   and    taking   endless   pains,    being 

Spaniard,  would,  to  adopt  Coleridge's  story,  have  taken  off  or  touched 
his  hat  whenever  he  spoke  of  himself,  met  Dr.  Belfrage  in  the  lobby 
of  the  Synod,  and  drawing  himself  up  as  he  passed,  he  muttered, 
'  high  and  michty !  "     "  There's  a  pair  of  us,  Mr.  Hall." 


190  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

like  Dr.  Chalmers  a  strong  believer  in  "the  power  of 
littles."  It  would  be  out  of  place,  though  it  would  be 
not  uninteresting,  to  tell  how  this  great  resident  powef 

this  strong  will    and  authority,  this  capacious,  clear, 

and  beneficent  intellect  —  dwelt  in  its  petty  sphere,  like 
an  oak  in  a  flower-pot ;  but  I  cannot  help  recalling  that 
signal  act  of  friendship  and  of  power  in  the  matter  of 
my  father's  translation  from  Rose  Street  to  Broughton 
Place,  to  which  you  have  referred. 

It  was  one  of  the  turning-points  of  my  father's  history. 
Dr.  Belfrage,  though  seldom  a  speaker  in  the  public 
courts  of  his  church,  was  always  watchful  of  the  inter- 
ests of  the  people  and  of  his  friends.  On  the  Rose  Street 
question  he  had  from  the  beginning  formed  a  strong 
opinion.  My  father  had  made  his  statement,  indicating 
his  leaning,  but  leaving  himself  absolutely  in  the  hands 
of  the  Synod.  There  was  some  speaking,  all  on  one 
side,  and  for  a  time  the  Synod  seemed  to  incline  to  be 
absolute,  and  refuse  the  call  of  Broughton  Place.  The 
house  was  everywhere  crowded,  and  breathless  with  in- 
terest, my  father  sitting  motionless,  anxious,  and  pale, 
prepared  to  submit  without  a  word,  but  retaining  his 
own  mind  ;  everything  looked  like  a  unanimous  decision 
for  Rose  Street,  when  Dr.  Belfrage  rose  up  and  came 
forward  into  the  "  passage,"  and  with  his  first  sentence 
and  look,  took  possession  of  the  house.  He  stated,  with 
clear  and  simple  argument,  the  truth  and  reason  of  the 
case ;  and  then  having  fixed  himself  there,  he  took  up  the 
personal  interests  and  feelings  of  his  friend,  and  put- 
ting before  them  what  they  were  about  to  do  in  send- 
ing back  my  father,  closed  with  a  burst  of  indignant 
appeal  —  "I  ask  you  now,  not  as  Christians,  I  ask  you 
as  gentlemen,  are   you  prepared  to  do  this  ? "     Every 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  191 

one  felt  it  was  settled,  and  so  it  was.    My  father  never 
forgot  this  great  act  of  his  friend. 

This  remarkable  man,  inferior  to  my  father  in  learn- 
ing, in  intensity,  in  compactness  and  in  power  of —  so 
to  speak  — focussing  himself,  —  admiring  his  keen  elo- 
quence, his  devotedness  to  his  sacred  art,  rejoicing  in 
his  fame,  jealous  of  his  honor  —  was,  by  reason  of  his 
own  massive  understanding,  his  warm  and  great  heart, 
and  his  instinctive  knowledge  of  men,  my  father's  most 
valued  friend,  for  he  knew  best  and  most  of  what  my 
father  knew  least ;  and  on  his  death,  my  father  said 
he  felt  himself  thus  far  unprotected  and  unsafe.  He 
died  at  Rothesay  of  hypertrophy  of  the  heart.  I  had 
the  sad  privilege  of  being  with  him  to  the  last ;  and 
any  nobler  spectacle  of  tender,  generous  affection,  high 
courage,  child-like  submission  to  the  Supreme  "Will,  and 
of  magnanimity  in  its  true  sense,  I  do  not  again  expect 
to  see.  On  the  morning  of  his  death  he  said  to  me, 
"  John,  come  and  tell  me  honestly  how  this  is  to  end ; 
tell  me  the  last  symptoms  in  their  sequence."  I  knew 
the  man,  and  was  honest,  and  told  him  all  I  knew.  "  Is 
there  any  chance  of  stupor  or  delirium  ?  "  "I  think  not. 
Death  (to  take  Bichat's  division)  will  begin  at  the  heart 
itself,  and  you  will  die  conscious."  "  I  am  glad  of  that. 
It  was  Samuel  Johnson,  wasn't  it,  who  wished  not  to  die 
unconscious,  that  he  might  enter  the  eternal  world  with 
his  mind  unclouded ;  but  you  know,  John,  that  was 
physiological  nonsense.  We  leave  the  brain,  and  all 
this  ruined  body,  behind ;  but  I  would  like  to  be  in 
my  senses  when  I  take  my  last  look  of  this  wonderful 
world,"  looking  across  the  still  sea  towards  the  Argyle- 
ehire  hills,  lying  in  the  light  of  sunrise,  "  and  of  my 
friends  —  of   you,"  fixing  his   eyes  on  a  faithful  friend 


192  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

and  myself.  And  it  was  so ;  in  less  than  an  hour  he 
was  dead,  sitting  erect  in  his  chair  —  his  disease  had 
for  weeks  prevented  him  from  lying  down,  —  all  the 
dignity,  simplicity,  and  benignity  of  its  master  resting 
upon,  and,  as  it  were,  supporting  that  "  ruin,"  which  he 
had  left. 

I  cannot  end  this  tribute  to  my  father's  friend  and 
mine,  and  my  own  dear  and  earliest  friend's  father, 
without  recording  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  in- 
stances of  the  power  of  will,  under  the  pressure  of 
affection,  I  ever  witnessed  or  heard  of.  Dr.  Belfrage 
was  twice  married.  His  second  wife  was  a  woman  of 
great  sweetness  and  delicacy,  not  only  of  mind,  but,  to 
his  sorrow,  of  constitution.  She  died,  after  less  than  a 
year  of  singular  and  unbroken  happiness.  There  was 
no  portrait  of  her.  He  resolved  there  should  be  one ; 
and  though  utterly  ignorant  of  drawing,  he  determined 
to  do  it  himself.  No  one  else  could  have  such  a  per- 
fect image  of  her  in  his  mind,  and  he  resolved  to  re- 
alize this  image.  He  got  the  materials  for  miniature 
painting,  and,  I  think,  eight  prepared  ivory  plates.  He 
then  shut  himself  up  from  every  one,  and  from  every- 
thing, for  fourteen  days,  and  came  out  of  his  room, 
wasted  and  feeble,  with  one  of  the  plates  (the  others 
he  had  used  and  burnt),  on  which  was  a  portrait,  full 
of  subtle  likeness,  and  drawn  and  colored  in  a  way  no 
one  could  have  dreamt  of,  having  had  such  an  artist. 
I  have  seen  it ;  and  though  I  never  saw  the  original 
I  felt  that  it  must  be  like,  as  indeed  every  one  who 
knew  her  said  it  was.  I  do  not,  as  I  said  before,  know 
anything  more  remarkable  in  the  history  of  human  sor- 
row and  resolve. 

I  remember  well  that  Dr.  Belfrage  was  the  first  man 


MY    FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  193 

I  ever  heard  speak  of  Free-trade  in  religion  and  in 
education.  It  was  during  the  first  election  after  the 
Reform  Bill,  when  Sir  John  Dalrymple,  afterwards  Lord 
Stair,  was  canvassing  the  county  of  Mid-Lothian.  They 
were  walking  in  the  doctor's  garden,  Sir  John  anxious 
and  gracious.  Dr.  Belfrage,  like,  I  believe,  every  other 
minister  in  his  body,  was  a  thorough-going  Liberal,  what 
was  then  called  a  Whig ;  but  partly  from  his  natural 
sense  of  humor  and  relish  of  power,  and  partly,  I  be- 
lieve, for  my  benefit,  he  was  putting  the  Baronet  through 
his  facings  with  some  strictness,  opening  upon  him 
startling  views,  and  ending  by  asking  him,  "  Are  you, 
Sir  John,  for  free-trade  in  corn,  free-trade  in  education, 
free-trade  in  religion  ?  I  am."  Sir  John  said,  "  Well, 
doctor,  I  have  heard  of  free-trade  in  corn,  but  never  in 
the  other  two."  "  You'll  hear  of  them  before  ten  years 
are  gone,  Sir  John,  or  I'm  mistaken." 

I  have  said  thus  much  of  this  to  me  memorable  man, 
not  only  because  he  was  my  father's  closest  and  most 
powerful  personal  friend,  but  because  by  his  word  he 
probably  changed  the  whole  future  course  of  his  life. 
Devotion  to  his  friends  was  one  of  the  chief  ends  of  his 
life,  not  caring  much  for,  and  having  in  the  affection  of 
his  heart  a  warning  against  the  perils  and  excitement 
of  distinction  and  energetic  public  work,  he  set  him- 
self far  more  strenuously  than  for  any  selfish  object,  to 
promote  the  triumphs  of  those  whom  his  acquired  in- 
stinct —  for  he  knew  a  man  as  a  shepherd  knows  a 
sheep,  or  "Caveat  Emptor"  a  horse  —  picked  out  as 
deserving  them.     He  rests  in  Colinton  churchyard, 

"  Where  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still,"  — 

his  only  child  William  Henry  buried  beside  him.     I  the 
13 


194  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR 

more  readily  pay  this  tribute  to  Dr.  Belfrage,  that  I 
owe  to  him  the  best  blessing  of  my  professional  and  one 
of  the  best  of  my  personal  life  —  the  being  apprenticed 
to  Mr.  Syme.  This  was  his  doing.  With  that  sense 
of  the  capacities  and  capabilities  of  other  men,  which 
was  one  of  his  gifts,  he  predicted  the  career  of  this 
remarkable  man.  He  used  to  say,  "  Give  him  life,  let 
him  live,  and  I  know  what  and  where  he  will  be  thirty 
years  hence ; "  and  this  long  before  our  greatest  clinical 
teacher  and  wisest  surgeon,  had  made  the  public  and 
the  profession  feel  and  acknowledge  the  full  weight  of 
his  worth. 

Another  life-long  and  ever  strengthening  friendship 
was  that  with  James  Henderson,  D.  D.,  Galashiels,  who 
survived  my  father  only  a  few  days.  This  remarkable 
man,  and  exquisite  preacher,  whose  intellect  and  worth 
had  for  nearly  fifty  years  glowed  with  a  pure,  steady, 
and  ever-growing  warmth  and  lustre  in  his  own  region, 
died  during  the  night  and  probably  asleep,  when,  like 
Moses,  no  one  but  his  Maker  was  with  him.  He  had 
for  years  labored  under  that  form  of  disease  of  the 
heart  called  angina  pectoris  (Dr.  Arnold's  disease),  and 
for  more  than  twenty  years  lived  as  it  were  on  the 
edge  of  instant  death ;  but  during  his  later  years  his 
health  had  improved,  though  he  had  always  to  "  walk 
softly,"  like  one  whose  next  step  might  be  into  eternity. 
This  bodily  sense  of  peril  gave  to  his  noble  and  leonine 
face  a  look  of  suffering  and  of  seriousness,  and  of  what, 
in  his  case,  we  may  truly  call  godly  fear,  which  all  must 
remember.  He  used  to  say  he  carried  his  grave  beside 
him.  He  came  in  to  my  father's  funeral,  and  took  part 
in  the  services.  He  was  much  affected,  and  we  fear 
the  long  walk  through  the  city  to  the  burial-place  was 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  195 

too  much  for  him ;  he  returned  home,  preached  a  ser- 
mon on  his  old  and  dear  friend's  death  of  surpassing 
beauty.  The  text  was,  "  For  me  to  live  is  Christ,  and 
to  die  is  gain."  It  was,  as  it  were,  his  own  funeral 
sermon  too,  and  there  was,  besides  its  fervor,  depth, 
and  heavenly-mindedness,  a  something  in  it  that  made 
his  old  hearers  afraid  —  as  if  it  were  to  be  the  last 
crush  of  the  grapes.  In  a  letter  to  me  soon  after  the 
funeral,  he  said :  —  "  His  removal  is  another  memento 
to  me  that  my  own  course  is  drawing  near  to  its  end. 
Nearly  all  of  my  contemporaries  and  of  the  friends  of 
my  youth  are  now  gone  before  me.  Well  \  I  may  say, 
in  the  words  of  your  friend  Vaughan  — 

1  They  are  all  gone  to  that  world  of  light, 

And  I  alone  sit  lingering  here; 
Their  very  memory  's  calm  and  bright, 
And  my  sad  thoughts  doth  cheer.'  " 

The  evening  before  his  death  he  was  slightly  unwell, 
and  next  morning,  not  coming  down  as  usual,  was  called, 
but  did  not  answer ;  and  on  going  in,  was  found  in  the 
posture  of  sleep,  quite  dead :  at  some  unknown  hour  of  the 
night  abiit  ad  fluxes  —  he  had  gone  over  to  the  major- 
ity, and  joined  the  famous  nations  of  the  dead.  Tu  vero 
felix  non  vitce  tantum  claritate,  sed  etiam  opportunitate 
mortis !  dying  with  his  lamp  burning,  his  passport  made 
out  for  his  journey ;  death  an  instant  act,  not  a  prolonged 
process  of  months,  as  with  his  friend. 

I  have  called  Dr.  Henderson  a  remarkable  man,  and 
an  exquisite  preacher ;  he  was  both,  in  the  strict  senses 
of  the  words.  He  had  the  largest  brain  I  ever  saw  or 
measured.  His  hat  had  to  be  made  for  him ;  and  his 
head  was  great  in  the  nobler  regions  ;  the  anterior  and 
upper  were  full,  indeed  immense.     If  the  base  of  his 


196  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

brain  and  his  physical  organization,  especially  his  cir- 
culating system,  had  been  in  proportion,  he  would  have 
been  a  man  of  formidable  power,  but  his  defective 
throb  of  the  heart,  and  a  certain  lentitude  of  temper- 
ament, made  this  impossible ;  and  his  enormous  organ 
of  thought  and  feeling,  being  thus  shut  from  the  outlet 
of  active  energy,  became  intensely  meditative,  more  this 
than  even  reflective.  The  consequence  was,  in  all  his 
thoughts  an  exquisiteness  and  finish,  a  crystalline  lustre, 
purity  and  concentration ;  but  it  was  tbe  exquisiteness 
of  a  great  nature.  If  the  first  edge  was  fine,  it  was  the 
sharp  end  of  the  wedge,  the  broad  end  of  which  you 
never  reached,  but  might  infer.  This  gave  momentum 
to  everything  he  said.  He  was  in  the  true  sense  what 
Chalmers  used  to  call  a  "man  of  wecht."  His  mind 
acted  by  its  sheer  absolute  power ;  it  seldom  made  an 
effort ;  it  was  the  hydraulic  pressure,  harmless,  man- 
ageable, but  irresistible ;  not  the  perilous  compression 
of  steam.  Therefore  it  was  that  he  was  untroubled  and 
calm,  though  rich ;  clear,  though  deep ;  though  gentle, 
never  dull ;  "  strong  without  rage,  without  o'erflowing 
full."  Indeed  this  element  of  water  furnishes  the  best 
figure  of  his  mind  and  its  expression.  His  language 
was  like  the  stream  of  his  own  Tweed ;  it  was  a  trans- 
lucent medium,  only  it  brightened  everything  seen 
through  it,  as  wetting  a  pebble  brings  out  its  lines 
and  color.  That  lovely,  and  by  him  much-loved  river 
was  curiously  like  him,  or  he  like  it,  gentle,  great, 
strong,  with  a  prevailing  mild  seriousness  all  along  its 
course,  but  clear  and  quiet;  sometimes,  as  at  old  Mel- 
rose, turning  upon  itself,  reflecting,  losing  itself  in 
beauty,  and  careless  to  go,  deep  and  inscrutable,  but 
stealing    away   cheerily    down    to    Lessudden,   all    the 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  197 

clearer  of  its  rest ;  and  then  again  at  the  Trows,  show- 
ing unmistakably  its  power  in  removing  obstruction? 
and  taking  its  own  way,  and  chafing  nobly  with  the 
rocks,  sometimes,  too,  like  him,  its  silver  stream  rising 
into  sudden  flood,  and  rolling  irresistibly  on  its  way.1 

We  question  if  as  many  carefully  thought  and  worded, 
and  rapidly  and  by  no  means  laboriously  written  ser- 
mons, were  composed  anywhere  else  in  Britain  during 
his  fifty  years  —  every  Sunday  two  new  ones ;  the  com- 
position faultless  —  such  as  Cicero  or  Addison  would 
have  made  them,  had  they  been  U.  P.  ministers ;  only 
there  was  always  in  them  more  soul  than  body,  more  of 
the  spirit  than  of  the  letter.  What  a  contrast  to  the 
much  turbid,  hot,  hasty,  perilous  stuff  of  our  day  and 
preachers  !  The  original  power  and  size  of  Dr.  Hen- 
derson's mind,  his  roominess  for  all  thoughts,  and  his 
still  reserve,  his  lentitude,  made,  as  we  have  said,  his 
expressions  clear  and  quiet,  to  a  degree  that  a  coarse 
and  careless  man,  spoiled  by  the  violence  and  noise  of 
other  pulpit  men,  might  think  insipid.  But  let  him  go 
over  the  words  slowly,  and  he  would  not  say  this  again ; 

l  Such  an  occasional  paroxysm  of  eloquence  is  thus  described  by 
Dr.  Cairns :  —  "At  certain  irregular  intervals,  when  the  loftier  themes 
of  the  gospel  ministry  were  to  be  handled,  his  manner  underwent  a 
transformation  which  was  startling,  and  even  electrical.  He  became 
rapt  and  excited  as  with  new  inspiration;  his  utterance  grew  thick 
and  rapid ;  his  voice  trembled  and  faltered  with  emotion ;  his  eye 
gleamed  with  a  wild  unearthly  lustre,  in  which  his  countenance 
shared;  and  his  whole  frame  heaved  to  and  fro,  as  if  each  glowing 
thought  and  vivid  figure  that  followed  in  quick  succession  were  only 
a  fragment  of  some  greater  revelation  which  he  panted  to  overtake. 
The  writer  of  this  notice  has  witnessed  nothing  similar  in  any  preach- 
er, and  numbers  the  effects  of  a  passage  which  he  once  heard  upon  the 
Bcenes  and  exercises  of  the  heavenly  world  among  his  most  thrilling 
recollections  of  sacred  oratory."  —  Memoir  prefixed  to  posthumous  vol- 
ume of  Discourses. 


198  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

and  let  him  see  and  feel  the  solemnizing,  commanding 
power  of  that  large,  square,  leonine  countenance,  the 
broad  massive  frame,  as  of  a  compressed  Hercules,  and 
the  living,  pure,  melodious  voice,  powerful,  but  not  by 
reason  of  loudness,  dropping  out  from  his  compressed  lips 
the  words  of  truth,  and  he  would  not  say  this  again. 
His  voice  had  a  singular  pathos  in  it ;  and  those  who  re- 
member his  often-called-for  sermon  on  "  The  Bright  and 
the  Morning  Star,"  can  reproduce  in  their  mind  its  tones 
and  refrain.  The  thoughts  of  such  men  —  so  rare,  so 
apt  to  be  unvisited  and  unvalued  —  often  bring  into  my 
mind  a  spring  of  pure  water  I  once  saw  near  the  top  of 
Cairngorm  ;  always  the  same,  cool  in  summer,  keeping 
its  few  plants  alive  and  happy  with  its  warm  breath 
in  winter,  floods  and  droughts  never  making  its  pulse 
change ;  and  all  this  because  it  came  from  the  interior 
heights,  and  was  distilled  by  nature's  own  cunning,  and 
had  taken  its  time  —  was  indeed  a  well  of  living  water. 
And  with  Dr.  Henderson  this  of  the  mountain  holds 
curiously  ;  he  was  retired,  but  not  concealed  ;  and  he  was 
of  the  primary  formation,  he  had  no  organic  remains  of 
other  men  in  him ;  he  liked  and  fed  on  all  manner  of 
literature  ;  knew  poetry  well ;  but  it  was  all  outside  of 
him ;  his  thoughts  were  essentially  his  own. 

He  was  peculiarly  a  preacher  for  preachers,  as  Spen- 
ser is  a  poet  for  poets.  They  felt  he  was  a  master.  He 
published,  after  the  entreaties  of  years,  a  volume  of  ser- 
mons which  has  long  been  out  of  print,  and  which  he 
would  never  prepare  for  a  second  edition ;  he  had  much 
too  little  of  the  love  of  fame,  and  though  not  destitute  of 
self-reliance  and  self-value,  and  resolved  and  unchange- 
able to  obstinacy,  he  was  not  in  the  least  degree  vain. 

But   you   will   think   I  am  writing   more    about   my 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  199 

father's  friends  and  myself  than  about  him.  In  a  cer 
tain  sense  we  may  know  a  man  by  his  friends  ;  a  man 
chooses  his  friends  from  harmony,  not  from  sameness, 
just  as  we  would  rather  sing  in  parts  than  all  sing  the 
air.  One  man  fits  into  the  mind  of  another  not  by 
meeting  his  points,  but  by  dovetailing ;  each  finds  in  the 
other  what  he  in  a  double  sense  wants.  This  was  true 
of  my  father's  friends.  Dr.  Balmer  was  like  him  in 
much  more  than  perhaps  any,  —  in  love  of  books  and 
lonely  study,  in  his  general  views  of  divine  truth,  and 
in  their  metaphysical  and  literary  likings,  but  they  dif- 
fered deeply.  Dr.  Balmer  was  serene  and  just  rather 
than  subtle  and  profound ;  his  was  the  still,  translucent 
stream,  —  my  father's  the  rapid,  and  it  might  be  deep; 
on  the  one  you  could  safely  sail,  the  other  hurried  you 
on,  and  yet  never  were  two  men,  during  a  long  life  of 
intimate  intercourse,  more  cordial. 

I  must  close  the  list ;  one  only  and  the  best  —  the 
most  endeared  of  them  all  —  Dr.  Heugh.  He  was,  in 
mental  constitution  and  temper,  perhaps  more  unlike  my 
father  than  any  of  the  others  I  have  mentioned.  His 
was  essentially  a  practical  understanding  ;  he  was  a  man 
of  action,  a  man  for  men  more  than  for  man,  the  curi- 
ous reverse  in  this  of  my  father.  He  delighted  in 
public  life,  had  a  native  turn  for  affairs,  for  all  that  soci- 
ety neeis  and  demands,  —  clear-headed,  ready,  intrepid, 
adroit ;  with  a  fine  temper,  but  keen  and  honest,  with  an 
argument  and  a  question  and  a  joke  for  every  one ;  not 
disputatious,  but  delighting  in  a  brisk  argument,  fonder 
of  wrestling  than  of  fencing,  but  ready  for  action  ;  not 
much  of  a  long  shot,  always  keeping  his  eye  on  the  im- 
mediate, the  possible,  the  attainable,  but  in  all  this  guided 
by  genuine  principle,  and  the  finest  honor  and  exactest 


200  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

truth.  He  excelled  in  the  conduct  of  public  business, 
saw  his  way  clear,  made  other  men  see  theirs,  was  for- 
ever getting  the  Synod  out  of  difficulties  and  confusions, 
by  some  clear,  tidy,  conclusive  "  motion  ; "  and  then  his 
speaking,  so  easy  and  bright  and  pithy,  manly  and  gen- 
tlemanly, grave  when  it  should  be,  never  when  it  should 
not  —  mobile,  fearless,  rapid,  brilliant  as  Saladin  —  hia 
eilent,  pensive,  impassioned  and  emphatic  friend  was  more 
like  the  lion-hearted  Richard,  with  his  heavy  mace  ;  he 
might  miss,  but  let  him  hit,  and  there  needed  no  repe- 
tition. Each  admired  the  other ;  indeed  Dr.  Heugh's 
love  of  my  father  was  quite  romantic ;  and  though  they 
were  opposed  on  several  great  public  questions,  such  as 
the  Apocrypha  controversy,  the  Atonement  question  at 
its  commencement ;  and  though  they  were  both  of  them 
too  keen  and  too  honest  to  mince  matters  or  be  mealy- 
mouthed,  they  never  misunderstood  each  other,  never 
had  a  shadow  of  estrangement,  so  that  our  Paul  and 
Barnabas,  though  their  contentions  were  sometimes  sharp 
enough,  never  "  departed  asunder ; "  indeed  they  loved 
each  other  the  longer  the  more. 

Take  him  all  in  all,  as  a  friend,  as  a  gentleman,  as  a 
Christian,  as  a  citizen,  I  never  knew  a  man  so  thoroughly 
delightful  as  Dr.  Heugh.  Others  had  more  of  this  or 
more  of  that,  but  there  was  a  symmetry,  a  compactness, 
a  sweetness,  a  true  delightfulness  about  him  I  can  remem« 
ber  in  no  one  else.  No  man,  with  so  much  temptation 
to  be  heady  and  high-minded,  sarcastic,  and  managing, 
from  his  overflowing  wit  and  talent,  was  ever  more  nat- 
ural, more  honest,  or  more  considerate,  indeed  tender- 
hearted. He  was  full  of  animal  spirits  and  of  fun,  and 
one  of  the  best  wits  and  jokers  I  ever  knew ;  and  such 
an  asker  of  questions,  of  posers  !      We  children  had  a 


MY  lATHER'S  MEMOIR.  201 

pleasing  dread  of  that  nimble,  sharp,  exact  man,  who 
made  us  explain  and  name  everything.  Of  Scotch  sto- 
ries he  had  as  many  original  ones  as  would  make  a 
second  volume  for  Dean  Ramsay.  How  well  I  remem- 
ber the  very  corner  of  the  room  in  Biggar  manse,  forty 
years  ago,  when  from  him  I  got  the  first  shock  and  relish 
of  humor ;  became  conscious  of  mental  tickling ;  of  a 
word  being  made  to  carry  double,  and  being  all  the 
lighter  of  it.  It  is  an  old  story  now,  but  it  was  new 
then ;  a  big,  perspiring  countryman  rushed  into  the  Black 
Bull  coach-office,  and  holding  the  door,  shouted,  "  Are 
yir  insides  a'  oot  ? "  This  was  my  first  tasting  of  the 
flavor  of  a  joke. 

Had  Dr.  Heugh,  instead  of  being  the  admirable  cler- 
gyman he  was,  devoted  himself  to  public  civil  life,  and 
gone  into  Parliament,  he  would  have  taken  a  high  place 
as  a  debater,  a  practical  statesman  and  patriot.  He 
had  many  of  the  best  qualities  of  Canning,  and  our  own 
Premier,  with  purer  and  higher  qualities  than  either. 
There  is  no  one  our  church  should  be  more  proud  of 
than  of  this  beloved  and  excellent  man,  the  holiness  and 
humility,  the  jealous,  godly  fear  in  whose  nature  was 
not  known  fully  even  to  his  friends,  till  he  was  gone, 
when  his  private  daily  self-searchings  and  prostrations 
before  his  Master  and  Judge  were  for  the  first  time 
made  known.  There  are  few  characters,  both  sides  of 
which  are  so  unsullied,  so  pure,  and  without  reproach. 

I  am  back  at  Biggar  at  the  old  sacramental  times ;  1 
see  and  hear  my  grandfather,  or  Mr.  Home  of  Brae- 
head,  Mr.  Leckie  of  Peebles,  Mr.  Harper  of  Lanark, 
as  inveterate  in  argument  as  he  was  warm  in  heart, 
Mr.  Comrie  of  Penicuik,  with  his  keen,  Voltaire-like 
face,  and  much  of  that  unhappy  and  unique  man's  wit, 


202  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

and  sense,  and  perfection  of  expression,  without  his  dark- 
er and  baser  qualities.  I  can  hear  their  hearty  talk,  can 
see  them  coming  and  going  between  the  meeting- 
house and  the  Tent  on  the  side  of  the  burn,  and  then 
the  Monday  dinner,  and  the  cheerful  talk,  and  the 
many  clerical  stories  and  pleasantries,  and  their  going 
home  on  their  hardy  little  horses,  Mr.  Comrie  leaving 
his  curl-papers  till  the  next  solemnity,  and  leaving  also 
some  joke  of  his  own,  clear  and  compact  as  a  diamond, 
and  as  cutting. 

I  am  in  Rose  Street  on  the  monthly  lecture,  the  church 
crammed,  passages  and  pulpit  stairs.  Exact  to  a  min- 
■  ute,  James  Chalmers  —  the  old  soldier  and  beadle,  slim, 
meek,  but  incorruptible  by  proffered  half  crowns  from 
ladies  who  thus  tried  to  get  in  before  the  doors  opened 
—  appears,  and  all  the  people  in  that  long  pew  rise  up, 
and  he,  followed  by  his  minister,  erect  and  engrossed, 
walks  in  along  the  seat,  and  they  struggle  up  to  the 
pulpit.  We  all  know  what  he  is  to  speak  of;  he  looks 
troubled  even  to  distress  ;  —  it  is  the  matter  of  Uriah 
the  Hittite.  He  gives  out  the  opening  verses  of  the 
51st  Psalm,  and  offering  up  a  short  and  abrupt  prayer, 
which  every  one  takes  to  himself,  announces  his  miser- 
able and  dreadful  subject,  fencing  it,  as  it  were,  in  a  low, 
penetrating  voice,  daring  any  one  of  us  to  think  an  evil 
thought ;  there  was  little  need  at  that  time  of  the  warn 
ing,  —  he  infused  his  own  intense,  pure  spirit,  into  us 
all. 

He  then  told  the  story  without  note  or  comment,  only 
personating  each  actor  in  the  tragedy  with  extraordi- 
nary effect,  above  all,  the  manly,  loyal,  simple-hearted 
6oldier.  I  can  recall  the  shudder  of  that  multitude  as 
of  one  man  when  he  read,    "  And  it  came  to  pass  in 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  203 

the  morning,  that  David  wrote  a  letter  to  Joab,  and 
sent  it  by  the  hand  of  Uriah.  And  he  wrote  in  the 
letter,  saying,  Set  ye  Uriah  in  the  forefront  of  the  hot- 
test battle,  and  retire  ye  from  him,  that  he  may  be 
smitten  and  die."  And  then,  after  a  long  and  utter 
silence,  his  exclaiming,  "  Is  this  the  man  according  to 
God's  own  heart  ?  Yes,  it  is  ;  we  must  believe  that 
both  are  true."  Then  came  Nathan.  "  There  were  two 
men  in  one  city  ;  the  one  rich,  and  the  other  poor.  The 
rich  man  had  exceeding  many  flocks  and  herds  ;  but 
the  poor   man   had  nothing,  save  one  little  ewe  lamb  " 

—  and  all  that  exquisite,  that  divine  fable  —  ending, 
like  a  thunder-clap,  with  "  Thou  art  the  man  ! "  Then 
came  the  retribution,  so  awfully  exact  and  thorough, — 
the  misery  of  the  child's  death  ;  that  brief  tragedy  of 
the  brother  and  sister,  more  terrible  than  anything  in 
JEschylus,  in  Dante,  or  in  Ford ;  then  the  rebellion  of 
Absalom,  with  its  hideous  dishonor,  and  his  death,  and 
the  king  covering  his  face,  and  crying  in  a  loud  voice, 
"  O  my  son  Absalom  !     0  Absalom  !  my  son  !  my  son  !  " 

—  and  David's  psalm,  "  Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  God, 
according  to  thy  loving-kindness ;  according  unto  the 
multitude  of  thy  tender  mercies  blot  out  my  transgres- 
sions," —  then  closing  with,  "  Yes  ;  '  when  lust  hath  con* 
ceived,  it  bringeth  forth  sin ;  and  sin,  when  it  is  finished, 
bringeth  forth  death.  Do  not  err,'  do  not  stray,  do  not 
transgress  (jut)  n-Aavao-tfe),1  '  my  beloved  brethren,'  it  is 
first  '  earthly,  then  sensual,  then  devilish  ; '  "  he  shut  the 
book,  and  sent  us  all  away  terrified,  shaken,  and  humbled, 
like  himself. 

I  would  fain  say  a  few  words  on  my  father's  last  ill— 

1  James  i.  15,  16.    It  is  plain  that  "do  not  err"  should  have  been 

in  verse  15th. 


204  MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR. 

ness,  or  rather  on  what  led  to  it,  and  I  wish  you  and 
others  in  the  ministry  would  take  to  heart,  as  matter  of 
immediate  religious  duty,  much  of  what  I  am  going  to 
say.  My  father  was  a  seven  months'  child,  and  lay,  I 
believe,  for  a  fortnight  in  black  wool,  undressed,  doing 
little  but  breathe  and  sleep,  not  capable  of  being  fed. 
He  continued  all  his  life  slight  in  make,  and  not  robust 
in  health,  though  lively,  and  capable  of  great  single 
efforts.  His  attendance  upon  his  mother  must  have 
saddened  his  body  as  well  as  his  mind,  .and  made  him 
willing  and  able  to  endure,  in  spite  of  his  keen  and  ar- 
dent spirit,  the  sedentary  life  he  in  the  main  led.  He 
was  always  a  very  small  eater,  and  nice  in  his  tastes, 
easily  put  off  from  his  food  by  any  notion.  He  there- 
fore started  on  the  full  work  of  life  with  a  finer  and 
more  delicate  mechanism  than  a  man's  ought  to  be,  in- 
deed, in  these  respects  he  was  much  liker  a  woman ; 
and  being  very  soon  "  placed,"  he  had  little  travelling, 
and  little  of  that  tossing  about  the  world,  which  in  the 
transition  from  youth  to  manhood,  hardens  the  frame 
as  well  as  supples  it.  Though  delicate,  he  was  almost 
never  ill.  I  do  not  remember,  till  near  the  close  of  his 
life,  his  ever  being  in  bed  a  day. 

From  his  nervous  system,  and  his  brain  predominat 
ing  steadily  over  the  rest  of  his  body,  he  was  habitually 
excessive  in  his  professional  work.  As  to  quantity,  as 
to  quality,  as  to  manner  and  expression,  he  flung  away 
his  life  without  stint  every  Sabbath-day,  his  sermons 
being  laboriously  prepared,  loudly  mandated,  and  at 
great  expense  of  body  and  mind,  and  then  delivered 
with  the  utmost  vehemence  and  rapidity.  He  was  quite 
unconscious  of  the  state  he  worked  himself  into,  and  of 
the  loud  piercing  voice  in  which  he  often  spoke.     This 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  205 

I  frequently  warned  him  about,  as  being,  I  knew,  inju- 
rious to  bimself,  and  often  painful  to  his  hearers,  and 
his  answer  always  was,  that  he  was  utterly  unaware  of 
it ;  and  thus  it  continued  to  the  close,  and  very  sad  it 
was  to  me  who  knew  the  peril,  and  saw  the  coming  end, 
to  listen  to  his  noble,  rich,  persuasive,  imperative  ap- 
peals, and  to  know  that  the  surplus  of  power,  if  re- 
tained, would,  by  God's  blessing,  retain  him,  while  the 
effect  on  his  people  would,  I  am  sure,  not  have  lost,  but 
in  some  respects  have  gained,  for  much  of  the  discourse 
which  was  shouted  and  sometimes  screamed  at  the  full 
pitch  of  his  keen  voice,  was  of  a  kind  to  be  better  ren- 
dered in  his  deep,  quiet,  settled  tones.  This,  and  the 
great  length  of  his  public  services,  I  knew  he  himself 
felt,  when  too  late,  had  injured  him,  and  many  a  smile 
he  had  at  my  proposal  to  have  a  secret  sub-congrega- 
tional string  from  him  to  me  in  the  back  seat,  to  be  au- 
thoritatively twitched  when  I  knew  he  had  done  enough ; 
but  this  string  was  never  pulled,  even  in  his  mind. 

He  went  on  in  this  expensive  life,  sleeping  very  little, 
and  always  lightly,  eating  little,  never  walking  except 
of  necessity ;  little  in  company,  when  he  would  have 
eaten  more  and  been,  by  the  power  of  social  relish,  made 
likelier  to  get  the  full  good  out  of  his  food ;  never  divert- 
ing his  mind  by  any  change  but  that  of  one  book  or  sub- 
ject for  another  ;  and  every  time  that  any  strong  afflic- 
tion came  on  him,  as  when  made  twice  a  widower,  or 
at  his  daughter's  death,  or  from  such  an  outrage  upon 
his  entire  nature  and  feelings  as  the  Libel,  then  his  del- 
icate machinery  was  shaken  and  damaged,  not  merely 
by  the  first  shock,  but  even  more  by  that  unrelenting 
6elf-command  by  which  he  terrified  his  body  into  instant 
submission.     Thus  it  was,  and  thus  it  ever  must  be,  if 


206  MY  FATHER'S  memoir. 

the  laws  of  our  bodily  constitution,  laid  down  by  Him 
who  knows  our  frame,  and  from  whom  our  substance 
is  not  hid,  are  set  at  nought,  knowingly  or  not  —  if 
knowingly,  the  act  is  so  much  the  more  spiritually  bad 
—  but  if  not,  it  is  still  punished  with  the  same  unerring 
nicety,  the  same  commensurate  meting  out  of  the  pen- 
alty, and  paying  "  in  full  tale,"  as  makes  the  sun  to  know 
his  time,  and  splits  an  erring  planet  into  fragments,  driv- 
ing it  into  space  "  with  hideous  ruin  and  combustion." 
It  is  a  pitiful  and  a  sad  thing  to  say,  but  if  my  father 
had  not  been  a  prodigal  in  a  true  but  very  different 
meaning,  if  he  had  not  spent  his  substance,  the  portion 
of  goods  that  fell  to  him,  the  capital  of  life  given  him 
by  God,  in  what  we  must  believe  to  have  been  needless 
and  therefore  preventable  excess  of  effort,  we  might  have 
had  him  still  with  us,  shining  more  and  more,  and  he 
and  they  who  were  with  him  would  have  been  spared 
those  two  years  of  the  valley  of  the  shadow,  Avith  its 
sharp  and  steady  pain,  its  fallings  away  of  life,  its  long- 
ing for  the  grave,  its  sleepless  nights  and  days  of  weari- 
ness and  langour,  the  full  expression  of  which  you  will 
find  nowhere  but  in  the  Psalms  and  in  Job. 

I  have  said  that  though  delicate  he  was  never  ill :  this 
was  all  the  worse  for  him,  for,  odd  as  it  may  seem,  many 
a  man's  life  is  lengthened  by  a  sharp  illness ;  and  this 
in  several  ways.  In  the  first  place,  he  is  laid  up,  out 
of  the  reach  of  all  external  mischief  and  exertion,  he  is 
like  a  ship  put  in  dock  for  repairs ;  time  is  gained.  A 
brisk  fever  clarifies  the  entire  man  ;  if  it  is  beaten  and 
does  not  beat,  it  is  like  cleaning  a  chimney  by  setting  it 
on  fire ;  it  is  perilous  but  thorough.  Then  the  effort  to 
throw  off  the  disease  often  quickens  and  purifies  and 
corroborates  the  central  powers  of  life  ;  the  flame  burns 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  207 

more  clearly ;  there  is  a  cleanness,  so  to  speak,  about  al! 
the  wheels  of  life.  Moreover,  it  is  a  warning,  and 
makes  a  man  meditate  on  his  bed,  and  resolve  to  pull 
up  ;  and  it  warns  his  friends,  and  likewise,  if  he  is  a 
clergyman,  his  people,  who  if  their  minister  is  always 
with  them,  never  once  think  he  can  be  ever  anything 
but  as  able  as  he  is. 

Such  a  pause,  such  a  breathing-time  my  father  never 
got  during  that  part  of  his  life  and  labors  when  it  would 
have  availed  most,  and  he  was  an  old  man  in  years, 
before  he  was  a  regular  patient  of  any  doctor.  He  was 
during  life  subject  to  sudden  headaches,  affecting  his 
memory  and  eyesight,  and  even  his  speech ;  these  at- 
tacks were,  according  to  the  thoughtless  phrase  of  the 
day,  called  bilious  ;  that  is,  he  was  sick,  and  was  re- 
lieved by  a  blue  pill  and  smart  medicine.  Their  true 
seat  was  in  the  brain  ;  the  liver  suffered  because  the 
brain  was  ill,  and  sent  no  nervous  energy  to  it,  or  pois- 
oned what  it  did  send.  The  sharp  racking  pain  in  the 
forehead  was  the  cry  of  suffering  from  the  anterior  lobes, 
driven  by  their  master  to  distraction,  and  turning  on 
him  wild  with  weakness  and  fear  and  anger.  It  was 
well  they  did  cry  out ;  in  some  brains  (large  ones)  they 
would  have  gone  on  dumb  to  sudden  and  utter  ruin,  as 
in  apoplexy  or  palsy ;  but  he  did  not  know,  and  no  one 
told  him  their  true  meaning,  and  he  set  about  seeking 
for  the  outward  cause  in  some  article  of  food,  in  some 
recent  and  quite  inadequate  cause. 

He  used,  with  a  sort  of  odd  shame  and  distress,  to  ask 
me  why  it  was  that  he  was  subjected  to  so  much  suffer- 
ing from  what  he  called  the  lower  and  ignoble  regions 
of  his  body ;  and  I  used  to  explain  to  him  that  he  had 
made  them  suffer  by  long  years  of  neglect,  and  that  they 


208  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

were  now  having  their  revenge,  and  in  their  own  way 
I  have  often  found,  that  the  more  the  nervous  centres 
are  employed  in  those  offices  of  thought  and  feeling  the 
most  removed  from  material  objects,  —  the.  more  the 
nervous  energy  of  the  entire  nature  is  concentrated,  en- 
grossed, and  used  up  in  such  offices, — so  much  the  more 
and  therefore,  are  those  organs  of  the  body  which  pre 
side  over  that  organic  life,  common  to  ourselves  and  the 
lowest  worm,  defrauded  of  their  necessary  nervous  food, 

—  and  being  in  the  organic  and  not  in  the  animal  de- 
partment, and  having  no  voice  to  tell  their  wants  or 
wrongs,  till  they  wake  up  and  annoy  their  neighbors  who 
have  a  voice,  that  is,  who  are  sensitive  to  pain,  they  may 
have  been  long  ill  before  they  come  into  the  sphere  of 
consciousness.  This  is  the  true  reason  —  along  with 
want  of  purity  and  change  of  air,  want  of  exercise,1  want 
of  shifting  the  work  of  the  body  —  why  clergymen,  men 
of  letters,  and  all  men  of  intense  mental  application,  are 
so  liable  to  be  affected  with  indigestion,  constipation,  lum- 
bago, and  lowness  of  spirits,  melancholia  —  black  bile. 
The  brain  may  not  give  way  for  long,  because  for  a  time 
the  law  of  exercise  strengthens  it ;  it  is  fed  high,  gets 
the  best  of  everything,  of  blood  and  nervous  pabulum, 
and  then  men  have  a  joy  in  the  victorious  work  of  their 
brain,  and  it  has  a  joy  of  its  own,  too,  which  deludes 
and  misleads. 

All  this  happened  to  my  father.  He  had  no  formal 
disease  when  he  died  —  no  structural  change  ;  his  sleep 
and  his  digestion  would  have  been  quite  sufficient  for  life 

1,1  The  youth  Story  was  in  all  respects  healtby,  and  even  robust; 
he  died  of  overwork,  or  rather,  as  I  understand,  of  a  two  years'  almost 
total  want  of  exercise,  which  it  was  impossible  to  induce  him  to  take.'' 

—  Arnold's  Report  to  the  Committee  of  Council  on  Education,  1860. 


MY  FATHER'S   MEMOIR.  209 

even  up  to  the  last ;  the  mechanism  was  entire,  but  the 
motive-power  was  gone  —  it  was  expended.  The  silver 
cord  was  not  so  much  loosed  as  relaxed.  The  golden 
bowl,  the  pitcher  at  the  fountain,  the  wheel  at  the  cistern, 
were  not  so  much  broken  as  emptied  and  stayed.  The 
clock  had  run  down  before  its  time,  and  there  was  no 
one  but  He  who  first  wound  it  up  and  set  it  who  could 
wind  it  up  again  ;  and  this  He  does  not  do,  because  it  is 
His  law  —  an  express  injunction  from  Him  —  that,  hav- 
ing measured  out  to  his  creatures  each  his  measure  of 
life,  and  left  him  to  the  freedom  of  his  own  will  and  the 
regulation  of  his  reason,  He  also  leaves  him  to  reap  as 
he  sows. 

Thus  it  was  that  my  father's  illness  was  not  so  much  a 
disease  as  a  long  death ;  life  ebbing  away,  consciousness 
left  entire,  the  certain  issue  never  out  of  sight.  This,  to 
a  man  of  my  father's  organization  —  with  a  keen  relish 
for  life,  and  its  highest  pleasures  and  energies,  sensitive 
to  impatience,  and  then  over-sensitive  of  his  own  impa- 
tience ;  cut  to  the  heart  with  the  long  watching  and  suf- 
fering of  those  he  loved,  who,  after  all,  could  do  so  little 
for  him  ;  with  a  nervous  system  easily  sunk,  and  by  its 
strong  play  upon  his  mind  darkening  and  saddening  his 
most  central  beliefs,  shaking  his  most  solid  principles, 
tearing  and  terrifying  his  tenderest  affections :  his  mind 
free  and  clear,  ready  for  action  if  it  had  the  power,  eager 
to  be  in  its  place  in  the  work  of  the  world  and  of  its 
Master,  to  have  to  spend  two  long  years  in  this  ever- 
descending  road  —  here  was  a  combination  of  positive 
and  negative  suffering  not  to  be  thought  of  even  now, 
when  it  is  all  sunk  under  that  "  far  more  exceeding  and 
eternal  weight  of  glory." 

He  often  spoke  to  me  freely  about  his  health,  went 
14 


210  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

into  it  with  the  fearlessness,  exactness,  and  persistency 
of  his  nature ;  and  I  never  witnessed,  or  hope  to  witness, 
anything  more  affecting  than  when,   after  it  had  been 
dawning  upon  him,  he  apprehended  the  true  secret  of 
his  death.     He  was  deeply  humbled,  felt  that  he  had 
done  wrong  to  himself,  to  his  people,  to  us  all,  to  his 
faithful  and   long-suffering  Master ;  and  he  often  said, 
with  a  dying  energy  lighting  up  his   eye,  and  nerving 
his  voice  and  gesture,  that  if  it  pleased  God  to  let  him 
again  speak  in  his  old  place,  he  would  not  only  proclaim 
again,  and,  he  hoped,  more  simply  and  more  fully,  the 
everlasting  gospel   to  lost  man,  but   proclaim   also  the 
gospel  of  God  to  the  body,  the  religious  and  Christian 
duty  and  privilege  of  living  in  obedience  to  the  divine 
laws  of  health.     He  was  delighted  when  I  read  to  him, 
and  turned  to  this  purpose  that  wonderful  passage  of 
St.  Paul  —  "  For  the  body  is  not  one  member,  but  many. 
If  the  whole  body  were  an  eye,  where  were  the  hearing  ? 
if  the  whole  were  hearing,  where   were   the  smelling? 
But  now  hath  God  set  the  members  every  one  of  them 
in  the  body,  as  it  hath  pleased  him.     And  the  eye  cannot 
say  unto  the  hand,  I  have  no  need  of  thee  ;  nor  again 
the  head  to  the  feet,  I  have  no  need  of  you.     Nay,  much 
more  those  members  of  the  body,  which  seem  to  be  more 
feeble,  are  necessary  ; "  summing  it  all  up  in  words  with 
life  and  death   in   them  — "  That   there   should   be  no 
schism  in  the  body  ;  but  that  the  members  should  have 
the  same  care  one  for  another.     And  whether  one  mem- 
ber suffer,  all  the  members  suffer  with  it;  or  one  member 
be  honored,  all  the  members  rejoice  with  it." 

The  lesson  from  all  this  is,  Attend  to  your  bodies, 
study  their  structure,  functions,  and  laws.  This  does  not 
at  all  mean  that  you  need  be  an  anatomist,  or  go  deep 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  211 

into  physiology,  or  the  doctrines  of  prevention  and  cure. 
Not  only  has  each  organism  a  resident  doctor,  placed 
there  by  Him  who  can  thus  heal  all  our  diseases ;  but 
this  doctor,  if  watched  and  waited  on,  informs  any  man 
or  woman  of  ordinary  sense  what  things  to  do,  and  what 
things  not  to  do.  And  I  would  have  you,  who,  I  fear, 
not  unfrequently  sin  in  the  same  way,  and  all  our  ardent, 
self-sacrificing  young  ministers,  to  reflect  whether,  after 
destroying  themselves  and  dying  young,  they  have  lost 
or  gained.  It  is  said  that  God  raises  up  others  in  our 
place.  God  gives  you  no  title  to  say  this.  Men  —  such 
men  as  I  have  in  my  mind  —  are  valuable  to  God  in 
proportion  to  the  time  they  are  here.  They  are  the 
older,  the  better,  the  riper  and  richer,  and  more  enrich- 
ing. Nothing  will  make  up  for  this  absolute  loss  of  life. 
For  there  is  something  which  every  man  who  is  a  good 
workman  is  gaining  every  year  just  because  he  is  older, 
and  this  nothing  can  replace.  Let  a  man  remain  on  his 
ground,  say  a  country  parish,  during  half  a  century  or 
more  —  let  him  be  every  year  getting  fuller  and  sweeter 
in  the  knowledge  of  God  and  man,  in  utterance  and  in 
power  —  can  the  power  of  that  man  for  good  over  all  his 
time,  and  especially  towards  its  close,  be  equalled  by  that 
of  three  or  four  young,  and,  it  may  be,  admirable  men, 
who  have  been  succeeding  each  other's  untimely  death, 
during  the  same  space  of  time  ?  It  is  against  all  spirit- 
ual, as  well  as  all  simple  arithmetic,  to  say  so. 

You  have  spoken  of  my  father's  prayers.  They  were 
of  two  kinds ;  the  one,  formal,  careful,  systematic,  and 
almost  stereotyped,  remarkable  for  fulness  and  compres- 
sion of  thought ;  sometimes  too  manifestly  the  result  of 
study,  and  sometimes  not  purely  prayer,  but  more  of  the 
nature  of  a  devotional  and  even  argumentative  address ; 


212  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

the  other,  as  in  the  family,  short,  simple,  and  varied.  He 
used  to  tell  of  his  master,  Dr.  Lawson,  reproving  him,  in 
his  honest  hut  fatherly  way,  as  they  were  walking  home 
from  the  Hall.  My  father  had  in  his  prayer  the  words, 
"  that  through  death  he  might  destroy  him  that  had  the 
power  of  death,  —  that  is,  the  devil."  The  old  man, 
leaning  on  his  favorite  pupil,  said,  "  John,  my  man,  you 
need  not  have  said  'that  is  the  devil;'  you  might  have 
been  sure  that  He  knew  whom  you  meant."  My  father, 
in  theory,  held  that  a  mixture  of  formal,  fixed  prayer,  in 
fact,  a  liturgy,  along  with  extempore  prayer,  was  the 
right  thing.  As  you  observe,  many  of  his  passages  in 
prayer,  all  who  were  in  the  habit  of  hearing  him  could 
anticipate,  such  as  "  the  enlightening,  enlivening,  sancti- 
fying, and  comforting  influences  of  the  good  Spirit,"  and 
many  others.  One  in  especial  you  must  remember ;  it 
was  only  used  on  very  solemn  occasions,  and  curiously 
unfolds  his  mental  peculiarities ;  it  closed  his  prayer  — 
"  And  now,  unto  Thee,  0  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost, 
the  one  Jehovah  and  our  God,  we  would  —  as  is  most 
meet  —  with  the  church  on  earth  and  the  church  in 
heaven,  ascribe  all  honor  and  glory,  dominion  and 
majesty,  as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever 
shall  be,  world  without  end.  Amen."  Nothing  could 
be  liker  him  than  the  interjection,  "  as  is  most  meet." 
Sometimes  his  abrupt,  short  statements  in  the  Synod 
were  very  striking.  On  one  occasion,  Mr.  James 
Morison  having  stated  his  views  as  to  prayer  very 
strongly,  denying  that  a  sinner  can  pray,  my  father, 
turning  to  the  Moderator,  said  —  "  Sir,  let  a  man  feel 
himself  to  be  a  sinner,  and,  for  anything  the  universe 
of  creatures  can  do  for  him,  hopelessly  lost,  —  let  him 
feel  this,  sir,  and  let  him  get  a  glimpse  of  the  Saviour, 


MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR.  218 

and  all  the  eloquence  and  argument  of  Mr.  Morison  will 
not  keep  that  man  from  crying  out,  '  God  be  merciful 
to  me  a  sinner.'  That,  sir,  is  prayer  —  that  is  accepta- 
ble prayer." 

There  must  be,  I  fear,  now  and  then  an  apparent 
discrepancy  between  you  and  me,  especially  as  to  the 
degree  of  mental  depression  which  at  times  overshad- 
owed my  father's  nature.  You  will  understand  this,  and 
I  hope  our  readers  will  make  allowance  for  it.  Some 
of  it  is  owing  to  my  constitutional  tendency  to  overstate, 
and  much  of  it  to  my  having  had  perhaps  more  fre- 
quent, and  even  more  private,  insights  into  this  part  of 
his  life.  But  such  inconsistency  as  that  I  speak  of — 
the  co-existence  of  a  clear,  firm  faith,  a  habitual  sense 
of  God  and  of  his  infinite  mercy,  the  living  a  life  of 
faith,  as  if  it  was  in  his  organic  and  inner  life,  more 
than  in  his  sensational  and  outward  —  is  quite  com- 
patible with  that  tendency  to  distrust  himself,  that  bodily 
darkness  and  mournfulness,  which  at  times  came  over 
him.  Any  one  who  knows  "  what  a  piece  of  work  is 
man  ; "  how  composite,  how  varying,  how  inconsistent 
human  nature  is,  that  each  of  us  are 

"  Some  several  men,  all  in  an  hour," 

—  will  not  need  to  be  told  to  expect,  or  how  to  har- 
monize these  differences  of  mood.  You  see  this  in  that 
wonderful  man,  the  apostle  Paul,  the  true  typical  ful- 
ness, the  humanness,  so  to  speak,  of  whose  nature  comes 
out  in  such  expressions  of  opposites  as  these  — "  By 
honor  and  dishonor,  by  evil  report  and  good  report : 
as  deceivers,  and  yet  true ;  as  unknown,  and  yet  well 
known ;  as  dying,  and,  behold,  we  live  ;  as  chastened, 
and  not  killed ;    as  sorrowful,   yet  alway  rejoicing ;   as 


214  MY  FATHER'S  MEMOIR. 

poor,  yet  making   many  rich ;    as  having  nothing,  and 
yet  possessing  all  things." 

I  cannot,  and  after  your  impressive  and  exact  his- 
tory of  his  last  days,  I  need  not  say  anything  of  the 
close  of  those  long  years  of  suffering,  active  and  pas- 
sive, and  that  slow  ebbing  of  life ;  the  body,  without 
help  or  hope,  feeling  its  doom  steadily  though  slowly 
drawing  on ;  the  mind  mourning  for  its  suffering  friend, 
companion,  and  servant ;  mourning  also,  sometimes,  that 
it  must  be  "  unclothed,"  and  take  its  flight  all  alone 
into  the  infinite  unknown ;  dying  daily,  not  in  the  heat 
of  fever,  or  in  the  insensibility  or  lethargy  of  paralytic 
disease,  but  having  the  .mind  calm  and  clear,  and  the 
body  conscious  of  its  own  decay,  —  dying,  as  it  were, 
in  cold  blood.  One  thing  I  must  add.  That  morning 
when  you  were  obliged  to  leave,  and  when  "  cold  ob- 
struction's apathy  "  had  already  begun  its  reign  —  when 
he  knew  us,  and  that  was  all,  and  when  he  followed  us 
with  his  dying  and  loving  eyes,  but  could  not  speak  — 
the  end  came ;  and  then,  as  through  life,  his  will  as- 
serted itself  supreme  in  death.  With  that  love  of  order 
and  decency  which  was  a  law  of  his  life,  he  deliberately 
composed  himself,  placing  his  body  at  rest,  as  if  setting 
his  house  in  order  before  leaving  it,  and  then  closed  his 
eyes  and  mouth,  so  that  his  last  look  —  the  look  his 
body  carried  to  the  grave  and  faced  dissolution  in  — 
was  that  of  sweet,  dignified  self-possession. 

I  have  made  this  letter  much  too  long,  and  have  said 
many  things  in  it  I  never  intended  saying,  and  omitted 
much  I  had  hoped  to  be  able  to  say.     But  I  must  end. 
Yours  ever  affectionately, 

J.  Brown. 


"  MYSTIFICA  TIONS." 


u  Health  to  the  auld  wife,  and  weel  mat  she  be, 
That  busks  her  fause  rock  wV  the  lint  o'  the  lee  (lie), 
Whirling  her  spindle  and  twisting  the  twine, 
Wynds  aye  the  richt  pirn  into  the  richt  /»««." 


«  MYSTIFICATIONS."  1 

I  HOSE  who  knew  the  best  of  Edinburgh 
society  eight-and-thirty  years  ago  —  and 
^Cn  when  was  there  ever  a  better  than  that 
1  -W-  &  best  ?  —  must  remember  the  personations 
of  an  old  Scottish  gentlewoman  by  Miss  Stirling  Gra- 
ham, one  of  which,  when  Lord  Jeffrey  was  victimized, 
was  famous  enough  to  find  its  way  into  Blackwood,  but 
in  an  incorrect  form. 

Miss  Graham's  friends  have  for  years  urged  her  to 
print  for  them  her  notes  of  these  pleasant  records  of 
the  harmless  and  heart-easing  mirth  of  bygone  times ; 
to  this  she  has  at  last  assented,  and  the  result  is  this 
entertaining,  curious,  and  beautiful  little  quarto,  in  which 
her  friends  will  recognize  the  strong  understanding  and 
goodness,  the  wit  and  invention,  and  fine  pawky  humor 
of  the  much-loved  and  warmhearted  representative  of 
Viscount  Dundee  —  the  terrible  Clavers.2  They  will 
recall  that  blithe  and  winning  face,  sagacious  and  sin- 

1  Edinburgh:  printed  privately,  1859. 

2  Miss  Graham's  genealogy  in  connection  with  Claverhouse  —  the 
same  who  was  killed  at  Killiecrankie  —  is  as  follows :  —  John  Graham 
of  Claverhouse  married  the  Honorable  Jean  Cochrane,  daughter  of 
William  Lord  Cochrane,  eldest  son  of  the  first  Earl  of  Dundonald. 
Their  only  son,  an  infant,  died  December  1689.  David  Graham,  his 
brother,  fought  at  Killiecrankie,  and  was  outlawed  in  1690  —  died 


218  MYSTIFICATIONS. 

cere,  that  kindly,  cheery  voice,  that  rich  and  quiet  laugh, 
that  mingled  sense  and  sensibility,  which  all  met,  and 
still,  to  our  happiness,  meet  in  her,  who,  with  all  her 
gifts  and  keen  perception  of  the  odd,  and  power  of  em- 
bodying it,  never  gratified  her  consciousness  of  these 
powers,  or  ever  played 

"  Her  quips  and  cranks  and  wanton  wiles," 

so  as  to  give  pain  to  any  human  being. 

The  title  of  this  memorial  is  Mystifications,  and  in 
the  opening  letter  to  her  dear  kinswoman  and  life-long 
friend,  Mrs.  Gillies,  widow  of  Lord  Gillies,  she  thus 
tells  her  story:  — 

Duntrune,  April  1859. 
Mr  Dearest  Mrs.  Gillies, 

To  you  and  the  friends  who  have  partaken  in  these 
"Mystifications"  1  dedicate  this  little  volume,  trusting 
that,  after  a  silence  of  forty  years,  its  echoes  may  awaken 
many  agreeable  memorials  of  a  society  that  has  nearly 
passed  away. 

I  have  been  asked  if  I  had  no  remorse  in  ridiculing 
singularities  of  character,  or  practising  deceptions  ;  — 
certainly  not. 

There  was  no  personal  ridicule  or  mimicry  of  any 
living  creature,  but  merely  the  personation  or  type  of 
a  bygone  class,  that  had  survived  the  fashion  of  its 
day. 

without  issue  —  when  the  representation  of  the  family  devolved  on  his 
cousin,  David  Graham  of  Duntrune.  Alexander  Graham  of  Duntrune 
died  1782;  and  on  the  demise  of  his  last  surviving  son,  Alexander,  in 
1804,  the  property  was  inherited  equally  by  his  four  surviving  sisters, 
Anne,  Amelia,  Clementina,  and  Alison.  Amelia,  who  married  Patrick 
Stirling,  Esq.,  of  Pittendreich,  was  her  mother.  Clementina  married 
Captain  Gavin  Drummond  of  Keltie ;  their  only  child  was  Clementina 
Countess  of  Airlie,  and  mother  of  the  present  Earl. 


MYSTIFICATIONS.  219 

It  was  altogether  a  fanciful  existence,  developing  itself 
according  to  circumstances,  or  for  the  amusement  of  a 
select  party,  among  whom,  the  announcement  of  a  stranger 
lady,  an  original,  led  to  no  suspicion  of  deception.  No 
one  ever  took  offence:  indeed  it  generally  elicited  the 
finest  individual  traits  of  sympathy  in  the  minds  of  the 
dupes,  especially  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Jeffrey,  whose  sweet- 
tempered  kindly  nature  manifested  itself  throughout  the 
whole  of  the  tiresome  interview  with  the  law-loving  Lady 
Pitlyal. 

JVo  one  enjoyed  her  eccentricities  more  than  he  did,  or 
more  readily  devised  the  arrangement  of  a  similar  scene 
for  the  amusement  of  our  mutual  friends. 

The  cleverest  people  were  the  easiest  mystified,  and 
when  once  the  deception  took  place,  it  mattered  not  how 
arrant  the  nonsense  or  how  exaggerated  the  costume.  In- 
deed, children  and  dogs  were  the  only  detectives. 

I  often  felt  so  identified  with  the  character,  so  charmed 
with  the  pleasure  manifested  by  my  audience,  that  it  be- 
came painful  to  lay  aside  the  veil,  and  descend  again  into 
the  humdrum  realities  of  my  own  self. 

These  personations  never  lost  me  a  friend;  on  the 
contrary,  they  originated  friendships  that  cease  only  with 
life. 

The  Lady  PitlyaVs  course  is  run;  she  bequeaths  to 
you  these  reminiscences  of  beloved  friends  and  pleasant 
meetings. 

And  that  the  blessing  of  God  may  descend  on  "  each 
and  all  of  you"  is  the  fervent  prayer  of  her  kinswoman 
and  executrix, 

CLEMENTINA  STIRLING  GRAHAM. 

I  now  beg  to  "  convey,"  as  Pistol  delicately  calls  it,  or 


220  MYSTIFICATIONS. 

as  we  on  our  side  the  Border  would  say,  to  "lift,"  enough 
of  this  unique  volume  to  make  my  readers  hunger  for  the 
whole. 


MRS.  RAMSAY  SPELDIN. 

Another  evening  Miss  Guthrie  requested  me  to  intro- 
duce my  old  lady  to  Captain  Alexander  Lindsay,  a  sou 
of  the  late  Laird  of  Kinblethmont,  and  brother  to  the 
+    present  Mr.  Lindsay  Carnegie,  and  Mr.   Sandford,  the 
late  Sir  Daniel  Sandford. 

She  came  as  a  Mrs.  Ramsay  Speldin,  an  old  sweet- 
heart of  the  laird's,  and  was  welcomed  by  Mrs.  Guthrie 
as  a  friend  of  the  family.  The  young  people  hailed 
her  as  a  perfectly  delightful  old  lady,  and  an  original 
of  the  pure  Scottish  character,  and  to  the  laird  she  was 
endeared  by  a  thousand  pleasing  recollections. 

He  placed  her  beside  himself  on  the  sofa,  and  they 
talked  of  the  days  gone  by  —  before  the  green  parks  of 
Craigie  were  redeemed  from  the  muir  of  Gotterston, 
and  ere  there  was  a  tree  planted  between  the  auld  house 
of  Craigie  and  the  Castle  of  Claypotts. 

She  spoke  of  the  "  gude  auld  times,  when  the  laird  of 
Fintry  widna  gie  his  youngest  dochter  to  Abercairney, 
but  tell'd  him  to  tak  them  as  God  had  gien  them  to  him. 
or  want." 

"  And  do  you  mind,"  she  continued,  "  the  grand  ploys 
we  had  at  the  Middleton  ;  and  hoo  Mrs.  Scott  of  Gilhorn 
used  to  grind  lilts  out  o'  an  auld  kist  to  wauken  her  visi- 
tors i'  the  mornin'. 

"And  some  o'  them  didna  like  it  sair,  tho'  nane  o'  them 
nad  courage  to  tell  her  sae,  but  Anny  Graham  o'  Dun 
trune. 


MYSTIFICATIONS.  221 

* '  Lord  forgie  ye,'  said  Mrs.  Scott,  '  ye'll  no  gae  to 
heaven,  if  ye  dinna  like  music ; '  but  Anny  was  never 
at  a  loss  for  an  answer,  and  she  said,  'Mrs.  Scott  — 
heaven  's  no  the  place  I  tak  it  to  be,  if  there  be  auld 
wives  in  't  playing  on  hand-organs.' " 

Many  a  story  did  Mrs.  Ramsay  tell.  The  party  drew 
their  chairs  close  to  the  sofa,  and  many  a  joke  she  re- 
lated, till  the  room  rung  again  with  the  merriment,  and 
the  laird,  in  ecstasy,  caught  her  round  the  waist,  exclaim- 
ing "  Oh  !  ye  are  a  canty  wifie." 

The  strangers  seemed  to  think  so  too  ;  they  absolutely 
hung  upon  her,  and  she  danced  reels,  first  with  the  one, 
and  then  with  the  other,  till  the  entrance  of  a  servant 
with  the  newspapers  produced  a  seasonable  calm. 

They  lay,  however,  untouched  upon  the  table  till  Mrs. 
Ramsay  requested  some  one  to  read  over  the  claims  that 
were  putting  in  for  the  King's  coronation,  and  see  if  there 
was  any  mention  of  hers. 

"  What  is  your  claim  ?  "  said  Mr.  Sandford. 

"  To  pyke  the  King's  teeth,"  was  the  reply. 

"  You  will  think  it  very  singular,"  said  Mr.  Guthrie, 
"  that  I  never  heard  of  it  before  ;  will  you  tell  us  how 
it  originated  ?  " 

"  It  was  in  the  time  of  James  the  First,"  said  she, 
"  that  monarch  cam  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  monks  of  Ar- 
broath, and  they  brought  him  to  Ferryden  to  eat  a  fish 
dinner  at  the  house  o'  ane  o'  my  forefathers.  The  family 
name,  ye  ken,  was  Spelden,  and  the  dried  fish  was  ca'd 
after  them. 

"  The  king  was  well  satisfied  wi'  a'  thing  that  was 
done  to  honor  him.  He  was  a  very  polished  prince,  and 
when  he  had  eaten  his  dinner  he  turned  round  to  the 
lady  and  sought  a  preen  to  pyke  his  teeth. 


222  MYSTIFICATIONS. 

"  And  the  lady,  she  took  a  fish  bane  and  wipit  it,  and 
gae  it  to  the  king ;  and  after  he  had  cleaned  his  teeth  wi' 
it,  he  said,  '  They  Ve  weel  pykit.' 

"  And  henceforth,  continued  he,  the  Speldins  of  Fer- 
ryden  shall  pyke  the  king's  teeth  at  the  coronation.  And 
it  shall  be  done  wi'  a  fish-bone,  and  a  pearl  out  o'  the 
Southesk  on  the  end  of  it.  And  their  crest  shall  be  a 
lion's  head  wi'  the  teeth  displayed,  and  the  motto  shall  be 
tveel  pykit.'" 

Mr.  Sandford  read  over  the  claims,  but  there  was  no 
notice  given  of  the  Speldins. 

"  We  maun  just  hae  patience,"  said  Mrs.  Ramsay, 
"  and  nae  doubt  it  will  appear  in  the  next  newspaper." 

Some  one  inquired  who  was  the  present  representa- 
tive ? 

"  It  's  me,"  replied  Mrs.  Ramsay  Speldin  ;  "  and  I 
mean  to  perform  the  office  mysel'.  The  estate  wad  hae 
been  mine  too,  had  it  existed ;  but  Neptune,  ye  ken,  is 
an  ill  neighbor,  and  the  sea  has  washed  it  a'  away  but 
a  sand  bunker  or  twa,  and  the  house  I  bide  in  at 
Ferryden." 

At  supper  every  one  was  eager  to  have  a  seat  near 
Mrs.  Ramsay  Speldin.  She  had  a  universal  acquaint- 
ance, and  she  even  knew  Mr.  Sandford's  mother,  when 
he  told  her  that  her  name  was  Catherine  Douglas.  Mr. 
Sandford  had  in  his  own  mind  composed  a  letter  to  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  which  was  to  have  been  written  and  des- 
patched on  the  morrow,  giving  an  account  of  this  fine 
specimen  of  the  true  Scottish  character  whom  he  had 
met  in  the  county  of  Angus. 

We  meant  to  carry  on  the  deception  next  morning, 
but  the  laird  was  too  happy  for  concealment.  Before 
the  door  closed  on  the  good-night  of  the  ladies,  he  had 


MYSTIFICATIONS.  223 

disclosed  the  secret,  and  before  we  reached  the  top  of 
the  stairs,  the  gentlemen  were  scampering  at  our  heela 
like  a  pack  of  hounds  in  full  cry. 

Here  are  at  random  some  extracts  from  the  others  :  — 

Mr.  Jeffrey  now  inquired  what  the  people  in  her  part 
of  the  country  thought  of  the  trial  of  the  Queen.  She 
could  not  tell  him,  but  she  would  say  what  she  herself 
had  remarked  on  siclike  proceedings  :  "  Tak'  a  wreath 
of  snaw,  let  it  be  never  so  white,  and  wash  it  through 
clean  water,  it  will  no  come  out  so  pure  as  it  gaed  in, 
far  less  the  dirty  dubs  the  poor  Queen  has  been  drawn 
through." 

Mr.  Russell  inquired  if  she  possessed  any  relics  of 
Prince  Charles  from  the  time  he  used  to  spin  with  the 
lasses :  — 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  I  have  a  flech  that  loupit  aff  him 
upon  my  aunty,  the  Lady  Brax,  when  she  was  helping 
him  on  wi'  his  short-gown  ;  my  aunty  rowed  it  up  in  a 
sheet  of  white  paper,  and  she  keepit  it  in  the  tea  can- 
ister, and  she  ca'd  it  aye  the  King's  Flech ;  and  the 
laird,  honest  man,  when  he  wanted  a  cup  of  gude  tea, 
sought  aye  a  cup  of  the  Prince's  mixture."  This  pro- 
duced peals  of  laughter,  and  her  ladyship  laughed  as 
heartily  as  any  of  them.  When  somewhat  composed 
again,  she  looked  across  the  table  to  Mr.  Clerk,  and 
offered  to  let  him  see  it.  "  It  is  now  set  on  the  pivot 
of  my  watch,  and  a'  the  warks  gae  round  the  flech  in 
place  of  turning  on  a  diamond." 

Lord  Gillies  thought  this  flight  would  certainly  betray 
her,  and  remarked  to  Mr.  Clerk  that  the  flea  must  be 
painted  on  the  watch,  but  Mr.  Clerk  said  he  had  known 
of  relics  being  kept  of  the  Prince  quite  as  extraordinary 
as  a  flea ;   that  Mr.  Murray  of  Simprim  had  a  pocket- 


224  MYSTIFICATIONS. 

handkerchief  in  which  Prince  Charles  had  blown  hig 
nose. 

The  Lady  Pitlyal  said  her  daughter  did  not  value 
these  things,  and  that  she  was  resolved  to  leave  it  as  a 
legacy  to  the  Antiquarian  Society. 

Holmehead  was  rather  amused  with  her  originality, 
though  he  had  not  forgotten  the  attack.  He  said  he 
would  try  if  she  was  a  real  Jacobite,  and  he  called  out, 
"  Madam,  I  am  going  to  propose  a  toast  for  ye  ! 

"  May  the  Scotch  Thistle  choke  the  Hanoverian 
Horse." 

"  I  wish  I  binna  among  the  Whigs,"  she  said. 

"  And  whare  wad  ye  be  sae  weel  ?  "  retorted  he. 

"  They  murdered  Dundee's  son  at  Glasgow." 

"  There  was  nae  great  skaith,"  he  replied ;  "  but  ye 
maun  drink  my  toast  in  a  glass  of  this  cauld  punch,  if 
ye  be  a  true  Jacobite." 

"  Aweel,  aweel,"  said  the  Lady  Pitlyal ;  "  as  my  auld 
friend  Lady  Christian  Bruce  was  wont  to  say,  '  The 
best  way  to  get  the  better  of  temptation  is  just  to  yield 
to  it ; ' "  and  as  she  nodded  to  the  toast  and  emptied 
the  glass,  Holmehead  swore  exultingly  —  "  Faith,  she 's 
true .' " 

Supper  passed  over,  and  the  carriages  were  announced. 
The  Lady  Pitlyal  took  her  leave  with  Mrs.  Gillies. 

Next  day  the  town  rang  with  the  heiress  of  Pitlyal. 
Mr.  "W.  Clerk  said  he  had  never  met  with  such  an 
extraordinary  old  lady,  "  for  not  only  is  she  amusing 
herself,  but  my  brother  John  is  like  to  expire,  when  I 
relate  her  stories  at  second-hand." 

He  talked  of  nothing  else  for  a  week  after,  but  the 
heiress,  and  the  flea,  and  the  rent-roll,  and  the  old  tur- 
reted  house  of  Pitlyal,  till  at  last  his  friends  thought  it 


MYSTIFICATIONS.  225 

would  be  right  to  undeceive  him  ;  but  that  was  not  so 
easily  done,  for  when  the  Lord  Chief-Commissioner 
Adam  hinted  that  it  might  be  Miss  Stirling,  he  said 
that  was  impossible,  for  Miss  Stirling  was  sitting  by  the 
old  lady  the  whole  of  the  evening. 

Here  is  a  bit  of  Sir  Walter  — 

Turning  to  Sir  Walter,  "  I  am  sure  you  had  our  laird 
in  your  e'e  when  you  drew  the  character  of  Monk- 
barns." 

"No,"  replied  Sir  Walter,  "but  I  had  in  my  eye  a 
very  old  and  respected  friend  of  my  own,  and  one  with 
whom,  I  daresay  you,  Mrs.  Arbuthnott,  were  acquainted 
—  the  late  Mr.  George  Constable  of  Wallace,  near  Dun- 
dee." 

"  I  kenned  him  weel,"  said  Mrs.  Arbuthnott,  "  and  his 
twa  sisters  that  lived  wi'  him,  Jean  and  Christian,  and 
I've  been  in  the  blue-chamber  of  his  Hospitium ;  but 
I  think,"  she  continued,  "  our  laird  is  the  likest  to 
Monkbarns  o'  the  twa.  He's  at  the  Antiquarian  So- 
ciety the  night,  presenting  a  great  curiosity  that  was 
found  in  a  quarry  of  mica  slate  in  the  hill  at  the  back 
of  Balwylie.  He's  sair  taken  up  about  it,  and  puzzled 
to  think  what  substance  it  may  be ;  but  James  Dalgett^  , 
wha's  never  at  a  loss  either  for  the  name  or  the  nature 
of  onything  under  the  sun,  says  it's  just  Noah's  auld 
wig  that  blew  aff  yon  time  he  put  his  head  out  of 
the  window  of  the  ark  to  look  after  his  corbie  mes- 
senger." 

James  Dalgetty  and  his  opinion  gave  subject  of  much 
merriment  to  the  company,  but  Doctor  Coventry  thought 
there  was  nothing  so  very  ludicrous  in  the  remark,  for 
in  that  kind  of  slate  there  are  frequently  substances  found 
resembling  hairs. 

15 


226  MYSTIFICATIONS. 

Lord  Gillies  presented  Doctor  Coventry  to  Mrs.  Ar- 
buthnott,  as  the  well-known  professor  of  agriculture,  and 
they  entered  on  a  conversation  respecting  soils.  She 
described  those  of  Balwylie,  and  the  particular  proper- 
ties of  the  Surroch  Park,  which  James  Dalgetty  curses 
every  time  it's  spoken  about,  and  says,  "  it  greets  a' 
winter,  and  girns  a'  simmer." 

The  doctor  rubbed  his  hands  with  delight,  and  said 
that  was  the  most  perfect  description  of  cold  wet  land 
he  had  ever  heard  of;  and  Sir  Walter  expressed  a  wish 
to  cultivate  the  acquaintance  of  James  Dalgetty,  and 
extorted  a  promise  from  Mrs.  Arbuthnott  that  she  would 
visit  Abbotsford,  and  bring  James  with  her.  u  I  have 
a  James  Dalgetty  of  my  own,"  continued  Sir  Walter, 
"  that  governs  me  just  as  yours  does  you." 

Lady  Ann  and  Mr.  Wharton  Duff  and  their  daugh- 
ter were  announced,  and  introduced  to  Mrs.  Arbuth- 
nott. 

At  ten,  Sir  Walter  and  Miss  Scott  took  leave,  with 
a  promise  that  they  should  visit  each  other,  and  bend- 
ing down  to  the  ear  of  Mrs.  Arbuthnott,  Sir  Walter 
addressed  her  in  these  words :  "  Awa !  awa !  the  deil  's 
ower  grit  wi'  you." 

And  now  are  we  not  all  the  better  for  this  pleasan- 
try ?  so  womanly,  so  genial,  so  rich,  and  so  without  a 
sting,  —  such  a  true  diversion,  with  none  of  the  sin  of 
effort  or  of  mere  cleverness ;  and  how  it  takes  us  into 
the  midst  of  the  strong-brained  and  strong-hearted  men 
and  women  of  that  time  !  what  an  atmosphere  of  sense 
and  good-breeding  and  kindliness  !  And  then  the  Scotch  ! 
cropping  out  everywhere  as  blithe,  and  expressive,  and 
unexpected   as  a   gowan  or  sweet-briar  rose,  with   an 


MYSTIFICATIONS.  227 

occasional  thistle,  sturdy,  erect,  and  bristling  with  Nemo 
me.  Besides  the  deeper  and  general  interest  of  these 
Mystifications,  in  their  giving,  as  far  as  I  know,  a  unique 
specimen  of  true  personation  —  distinct  from  acting  — 
I  think  it  a  national  good  to  let  our  youngsters  read, 
and,  as  it  were,  hear  the  language  which  our  gentry  and 
judges  and  men  of  letters  spoke  not  long  ago,  and  into 
which  such  books  as  Dean  Ramsay's  and  this  are  breath- 
ing the  breath  of  its  old  life.  Was  there  ever  anything 
better  or  so  good,  said  of  a  stiff  clay,  than  that  it  "  girns 
(grins)  a'  simmer,  and  greets  (weeps)  a'  winter  ?  " 


OH,  I'M  WAT,    WAT!" 


The  father  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Steven  of  Largs,  was  the  son  of  a  far- 
mer, who  lived  next  farm  to  Mossgiel.  When  a  boy  of  eight,  he  found 
"  Robbie  "  who  was  a  <dr  eat  friend  of  his,  and  of  all  the  children,  engaged 
digging  a  large  trench  in  afield,  Gilbert,  his  brother,  with  him.  The  boy 
pausing  on  the  edge  of  the  trmch,  and  looking  down  upon  Burns,  said, 
"  Robbie,  whafs  that  ye're  doin'f"  "  Rowkin'  a  muckle  hole,  Tammie." 
"  What  for?"  "  To  bury  the  Deilin,  Tammie!"  {one  can  fancy  how 
those  eyes  would  glow.)  "  A'but,  Robbie,"  said  the  logical  Tammie, 
"  hoo're  ye  to  get  him  in?"  "  Ay,"  said  Burns,  "  that's  it,  hoo  are  we 
to  get  Him  in  /"  and  went  off  into  shouts  of  laughter ;  and  tvery  now 
and  then  during  that  summer  day  shouts  would  come  from  that  hole,  at  the 
idea  came  over  him.  If  one  could  only  have  daguerreotyped  his  day's 
fancies  ! 


"OH,  I'M  WAT,  WAT!" 

fHAT   is   love,  Mary?"   said   Seventeen  to 
Thirteen,  who  was  busy  with  her  English 
lessons. 
"  Love  !  what  do  you  mean,  John  ?  " 

"  I  mean,  what's  love  ?  " 

"  Love's  just  love,  I  suppose." 

(Yes,  Mary,  you  are  right  to  keep  by  the  concrete ; 
analysis  kills  love  as  well  as  other  things.  I  once  asked 
a  useful-information  young  lady  what  her  mother  was. 
'  Oh,  mamma's  a  biped ! '  I  turned  in  dismay  to  her 
younger  sister,  and  said,  What  do  you  say  ?  '  Oh,  my 
mother's  just  my  mother.'  ) 

"  But  what  part  of  speech  is  it  ?  " 

"  It's  a  substantive  or  a  verb."  (Young  Home  Tooke 
didn't  ask  her  if  it  was  an  active  or  passive,  an  irregular 
or  defective  verb  ;  an  inceptive,  as  calesco,  I  grow  warm, 
or  dulcesco,  1  grow  sweet ;  a  frequentative  or  a  desidera- 
tive,  as  nupturio,  I  desire  to  marry.) 

"  I  think  it  is  a  verb,"  said  John,  who  was  deep  in 
other  diversions,  besides  those  of  Purley  ;  "  and  I  think 
it  must  have  been  originally  the  Perfect  of  Live,  like 
thrive  throve,  strive  strove." 

"  Capital,  John  !  "  suddenly  growled  Uncle  Oldbuck, 
who  was  supposed  to  be  asleep  in  his  arm-chair  by  the 


232  "OH,  I'M  WAT,  WAT!" 

fireside,  and  who  snubbed  and  supported  the  entire 
household.  "  It  was  that  originally,  and  it  will  be  our 
own  faults,  children,  if  it  is  not  that  at  last,  as  well  as, 
ay,  and  more  than  at  first.  What  does  Richardson  say, 
John  ?  read  him  out."     John  reads  — 

LOVE,  v.  s.  To  prefer,  to  desire,   as  an 

-less.  object  of  possession   or  enjoy- 

-ly,  ad.  av.  ment ;    to    delight    in,    to    be 

-lily.  pleased    or    gratified    with,    to 

-liness.  take    pleasure    or    gratification 

-ER.  in,  delight  in. 

-ing.  Love,  the  s  is   app.   emph.  to 

-lngly.  the  passion  between  the  sexes. 

-ingness.  Lover  is,  by  old  writers,  app.  as 

-able.*  friend  —  by  male  to  male. 

-SOME.f  Love  is  much  used  —  pref. 

ered.J  *  Wiclif.    f  Chaucer.     %  Shak. 

Love-locks,  —  locks  (of  hair)  to  set  off  the 
beauty;  the  loveliness. 

A.  S.  Luf-ian;  D.  Lie-ven;  Ger.  -ben,  amare,  dil- 
igere.  Wach.  derives  from  lieb,  bonum,  because 
every  one  desires  that  which  is  good :  litb,  it  is  more 
probable,  is  from  lieb-en,  grateful,  and  therefore 
good.  It  may  at  least  admit  a  conjecture  that  A. 
S-  Lufian,  to  love,  has  a  reason  for  its  application 
similar  to  that  of  L.  Di-ligere  (legere,  to  gather), 
to  take  up  or  out  (of  a  number),  to  choose,  sc.  one 
in  preference  to  another,  to  prefer;  and  that  it  is 
formed  upon  A.  S.  Elif-ian,  to  lift  or  take  up,  to 
pick  up,  to  select,  to  prefer.    Be-  Over-  Un- 

Uncle  impatiently.  —  "  Stuff ;  '  grateful ! '  '  pick   up  ! 
Btuff!      These   word-mongers    know   nothing    about   it. 
Live,  love ;  that  is  it,  the  perfect  of  live."  1 

After   this,    Uncle    sent    the    cousins   to   their    beds. 

1  They  are  strange  beings,  these  lexicographers.    Richardson,  for 


"  OH,  I'M  WAT,  WAT  !  "  233 

Mary's  mother  was  in  hers,  never  to  rise  from  it  again 
She  was  a  widow,  and  Mary  was  her  husband's  niece. 
The  house  quiet,  Uncle  sat  down  in  his  chair,  put  his 
feet  on  the  fender,  and  watched  the  dying  fire ;  it  had  a 
rich  central  glow,  but  no  flame,  and  no  smoke,  it  was 
flashing  up  fitfully,  and  bit  by  bit  falling  in.  He  fell 
asleep  watching  it,  and  when  he  slept,  he  dreamed.  He 
was  young ;  he  was  seventeen  ;  he  was  prowling  about 
the  head  of  North  St.  David  Street,  keeping  his  eye  on 
a  certain  door,  —  we  call  them  common  stairs  in  Scot- 
land. He  was  waiting  for  Mr.  White's  famous  English 
class  for  girls  coming  out.  Presently  out  rushed  four 
or  five  girls,  wild  and  laughing ;  then  came  one,  bound- 
ing like  a  roe : 

"  Such  eyes  were  in  her  head, 
And  so  much  grace  and  power!  " 

She  was  surrounded  by  the  rest,  and  away  they  went 
laughing,  she  making  them  always  laugh  the  more. 
Seventeen  followed  at  a  safe  distance,  studying  her 
small,  firm,  downright  heel.  The  girls  dropped  off  one 
by  one,  and  she  was  away  home  by  herself,  swift  and 
reserved.  He,  imposter  as  he  was,  disappeared  through 
Jamaica  Street,  to  reappear  and  meet  her,  walking  as 
if  on  urgent  business,  and  getting  a  cordial  and  careless 
nod.  This  beautiful  girl  of  thirteen  was  afterwards  the 
mother  of  our  Mary,  and  died  in  giving  her  birth.  She 
was  Uncle  Oldbuck's  first  and  only  sweetheart :  and  here 

instance,  under  the  word  snail,  gives  this  quotation  from  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher's  Wit  at  Several  Weapons,  — 

"  Oh,  Master  Pompey  !  how  is  't,  man? 
Clown  —  Snails,  I'm  almost  starved  with  love  and  cold,  and  one 
thing  or  other." 

Any  one  else  knows  of  course  that  it  is  "  's  nails  "  —  the  contrac- 
tion of  the  old  oath  or  interjection  —  God's  nails. 


234  "  OH,  I'M  WAT,  WAT  !  " 

was  he,  the  only  help  our  young  Home  Tooke,  and  his 

mother  and  Mary  had.     Uncle  awoke,  the  fire  dead,  and 

the  room  cold.     He  found  himself  repeating  Lady  John 

Scott's  lines  — 

"  When  thou  art  near  me, 
Sorrow  seems  to  fly, 
And  then  I  think,  as  well  I  may, 
That  on  this  earth  there  is  no  one 
More  blest  than  I. 

But  when  thou  leav'st  me, 

Doubts  and  fears  arise, 
And  darkness  reigns, 

Where  all  before  was  light. 
The  sunshine  of  my  soul 

Is  in  those  eyes, 
And  when  they  leave  me 

All  the  world  is  night. 

But  when  thou  art  near  me, 

Sorrow  seems  to  fly, 
And  then  I  feel,  as  well  I  may, 
That  on  this  earth  there  dwells  not  one 
So  blest  as  I."  l 

Then  taking  down  Chambers's  Scottish  Songs,  he  read 
aloud :  — 

"  0  I'm  wat,  wat, 

0  I'm  wat  and  weary; 
Yet  fain  wad  I  rise  and  rin, 

It  I  thocht  I  would  meet  my  dearie. 
Aye  waukin',  O ! 

Waukin'  aye,  and  weary; 
Sleep,  I  can  get  nane 
For  thinkin'  o'  my  dearie. 

Simmer 's  a  pleasant  time, 
Flowers  o'  every  color; 

1  Can  the  gifted  author  of  these  lines  and  of  their  music  not  be  p»e- 
vailed  on  to  give  them  and  others  to  the  world,  as  well  as  to  hei 
friends  ? 


"OH,  I'M  WAT,  WAT!"  235 

The  winter  rins  ower  the  heugh, 
And  I  long  for  my  true  lover. 

When  I  sleep  I  dream, 

When  I  wauk  I'm  eerie, 
Sleep  I  can  get  nane, 

For  thinkin'  o'  my  dearie. 

Lanely  nicht  comes  on, 

A'  the  lave  are  sleepin' ; 
I  think  on  my  true  love, 

And  blear  my  e'en  wi'  greetm'. 

Feather  beds  are  saft  — 

Pentit  rooms  are  bonnie; 
But  ae  kiss  o'  my  dear  love 

Better 's  far  than  ony. 

0  for  Friday  nicht !  — 

Friday  at  the  gloamin*; 
O  for  Friday  nicht  — 

Friday 's  lang  o'  comin'  1 " 

This  love-song,  which  Mr.  Chambers  gives  from  reci- 
tation, is,  thinks  Uncle  to  himself,  all  but  perfect ;  Burns, 
who  in  almost  every  instance,  not  only  adorned,  but 
transformed  and  purified  whatever  of  the  old  he  touched, 
breathing  into  it  his  own  tenderness  and  strength,  fails 
here,  as  may  be  seen  in  reading  his  version. 

"  Oh,  spring 's  a  pleasant  time ! 

Flowers  o'  every  color  — 
The  sweet  bird  bvilds  her  nest, 

And  I  lang  for  my  lover. 
Aye  wakin',  oh! 

Wakin'  aye  and  wearie  ; 
Sleep  I  can  get  nane, 

For  thinkin'  o'  my  dearie  I 

"  When  I  sleep  I  dream, 
When  I  wauk  I'm  eerie, 
Best  I  canna  get, 

For  thinkin'  o'  my  dearie. 


236  "OH,  I'M  WAT,  WATl»' 

Aye  wakin',  oh! 

Wakin'  aye  and  weary; 
Come,  come,  blissful  dream, 

Bring  me  to  my  dearie. 

"  Darksome  nicht  comes  doun  — 

A'  the  lave  are  sleepin' ; 
I  think  on  my  kind  lad, 

And  blin'  my  een  wi'  greetin'. 
Aye  wakin',  oh ! 

Wakin'  aye  and  wearie ; 
Hope  is  sweet,  but  ne'er 

Sae  sweet  as  my  dearie !  " 

How  weak  these  italics !  No  one  can  doubt  which  of 
these  is  the  better.  The  old  song  is  perfect  in  the  pro- 
cession, and  in  the  simple  beauty  of  its  thoughts  and 
words.  A  ploughman  or  shepherd  —  for  I  hold  that  it 
is  a  man's  song  —  comes  in  "  wat,  wat "  after  a  hard 
day's  work  among  the  furrows,  or  on  the  hill.  The  wat- 
ness  of  wat,  wat,  is  as  much  wetter  than  wet  as  a  Scotch 
mist  is  more  of  a  mist  than  an  English  one  ;  and  he  is 
not  only  wat,  wat,  but  "  weary,"  longing  for  a  dry  skin 
and  a  warm  bed  and  rest ;  but  no  sooner  said  and  felt, 
than,  by  the  law  of  contrast,  he  thinks  on  "  Mysie  "  or 
"  Ailie,"  his  Genevieve  ;  and  then  "  all  thoughts,  all  pas- 
sions, all  delights,"  begin  to  stir  him,  and  "  fain  wad  I 
rise  and  rin  (what  a  swiftness  beyond  run  is  "  rin  " !) 
Love  now  makes  him  a  poet;  the  true  imaginative 
power  enters  and  takes  possession  of  him.  By  this 
time  his  clothes  are  off,  and  he  is  snug  in  bed ;  not  a 
wink  can  he  sleep ;  that  "  fain "  is  domineering  over 
him,  —  and  he  breaks  out  into  what  is  as  genuine  pas- 
sion and  poetry,  as  anything  from  Sappho  to  Tennyson 
—  abrupt,  vivid,  heedless  of  syntax.  "  Simmer  's  a  pleas- 
ant time."     Would  any  of  our  greatest  geniuses,  being 


"OH,  I'M  WAT,  WAT!"  237 

limited  to  one  word,  have  done  better  than  take  "  pleas- 
ant ?  "  and  then  the  fine  vagueness  of  "  time  ! "  "  Flow- 
ers o'  every  color ; "  he  gets  a  glimpse  of  "  herself  a 
fairer  flower,"  and  is  off  in  pursuit.  "  The  water  rins 
ower  the  heugh "  (a  steep  precipice)  ;  flinging  itself 
wildly,  passionately  over,  and  so  do  I  long  for  my  true 
lover.     Nothing  can  be  simpler  and  finer  than 

"When  I  sleep,  I  dream; 

When  I  wauk,  I'm  eerie." 

"  Lanely  nicht ; "  how  much  richer  and  touching  than 
"  darksome."  "  Feather  beds  are  saft ;  "  "  paintit  rooms 
are  bonnie  ; "  I  would  infer  from  this,  that  his  "  dearie," 
his  "  true  love,"  was  a  lass  up  at  "  the  big  house "  — 
a  dapper  Abigail  possibly  —  at  Sir  William's  at  the 
Castle,  and  then  we  have  the  final  paroxysm  upon  Fri- 
day nicht  —  Friday  at  the  gloamin' !  0  for  Friday 
nicht !  —  Friday  's  lang  o'  comin' !  —  it  being  very  likely 
Thursday  before  daybreak,  when  this  affectionate  ulu- 
latus  ended  in  repose. 

Now,  is  not  this  rude  ditty,  made  very  likely  by  some 
clumsy,  big-headed  Galloway  herd,  full  of  the  real  stuff 
of  love  ?  He  does  not  go  off  upon  her  eyebrows,  or 
even  her  eyes ;  he  does  not  sit  down,  and  in  a  genteel 
way  announce  that  "  love  in  thine  eyes  forever  sits," 
&c.  &c,  or  that  her  feet  look  out  from  under  her  pet- 
ticoats like  little  mice :  he  is  far  past  that ;  he  is  not 
making  love,  he  is  in  it.  This  is  one  and  a  chief  charm 
of  Burns'  love-songs,  which  are  certainly  of  all  love- 
Bongs  except  those  wild  snatches  left  to  us  by  her  who 
flung  herself  from  the  Leucadian  rock,  the  most  in 
earnest,  the  tenderest,  the  "  most  moving  delicate  and 
full  of  life."     Burns  makes  you  feel  the  reality  and  the 


238  "OH,  I'M  WAT,  WAT!" 

depth,  the  truth  of  his  passion ;  it  is  not  her  eyelashes 
or  her  nose,  or  her  dimple,  or  even 

"A  mole  cinque-spotted,  like  the  crimson  drops 
I*  the  bottom  of  a  cowslip," 

that  are  "  winging  the  fervor  of  his  love ; "  not  even 
her  soul ;  it  is  herself.  This  concentration  and  earnest- 
ness, this  perfervor  of  our  Scottish  love  poetry,  seems  to 
me  to  contrast  curiously  with  the  light,  trifling  philander- 
ing of  the  English ;  indeed,  as  far  as  I  remember,  we 
have  almost  no  love-songs  in  English,  of  the  same  class 
as  this  one,  or  those  of  Burns.  They  are  mostly  either 
of  the  genteel,  or  of  the  nautical  (some  of  these  capital), 
or  of  the  comic  school.  Do  you  know  the  most  perfect, 
the  finest  love-song  in  our  or  in  any  language  ;  the  love 
being  affectionate  more  than  passionate,  love  in  posses- 
sion not  in  pursuit? 

"  Oh,  wert  thou  in  the  cauld  blast 

On  yonder  lea,  on  yonder  lea, 
My  plaidie  to  the  angry  airt, 

I'd  shelter  thee,  I'd  shelter  thee: 
Or  did  Misfortune's  bitter  storms 

Around  thee  blaw,  around  thee  blaw, 
Thy  bield  should  be  my  bosom, 

To  share  it  a',  to  share  it  a'. 

"  Or  were  I  in  the  wildest  waste, 

Sae  black  and  bare,  sae  black  and  bare, 
The  desert  were  a  paradise, 

If  thou  wert  there,  if  thou  wert  there : 
Or  were  I  monarch  o'  the  globe, 

Wi'  thee  to  reign,  wi'  thee  to  reign, 
The  brightest  jewel  in  my  crown 

Wad  be  my  queen,  wad  be  my  queen." 

The  following  is  Mr.  Chambers'  account  of  the  origin 


"OH,  I'M  WAT,  WAT!"  23& 

of  this  song :  —  Jessy  Lewars  had  a  call  one  morning 
from  Burns.  He  offered,  if  she  would  play  him  any 
tune  of  which  she  was  fond,  and  for  which  she  desired 
new  verses,  that  he  would  do  his  best  to  gratify  her  wish. 
She  sat  down  at  the  piano,  and  played  over  and  over  the 
air  of  an  old  song,  beginning  with  the  words  — 

"  The  robin  cam'  to  the  wren's  nest, 

And  keekit  in,  and  keekit  in: 
•  0  weel's  me  on  your  auld  pow ! 
Wad  ye  be  in,  wad  ye  be  in? 
Ye'  se  ne'er  get  leave  to  lie  without, 

And  I  within,  and  I  within, 
As  lang  's  I  hae  an  auld  clout, 
To  row  ye  in,  to  row  ye  in.' " 

Uncle  now  took  his  candle,  and  slunk  off  to  bed,  slip- 
ping up  noiselessly  that  he  might  not  disturb  the  thin 
sleep  of  the  sufferer,  saying  in  to  himself — "  I'd  shelter 
thee,  I'd  shelter  thee ; "  "  If  thou  wert  there,  if  thou 
wert  there ; "  and  though  the  morning  was  at  the  win- 
dow, he  was  up  by  eight,  making  breakfast  for  John  and 
Mary. 

Love  never  faileth ;  but  whether  there  be  prophecies, 
they  shall  fail ;  whether  there  be  tongues,  they  shall 
cease ;  whether  there  be  knowledge,  it  shall  vanish 
away ;  but  love  is  of  God,  and  cannot  fail. 


ARTHUR  H.   HALL  AM. 


"  Pr.esens   imperfection,  — perfection,  plusquam  perfectum  futo- 

BUM."  — GroTIUS. 

"  The  idea  of  thy  life  shall  sweetly  creep 
Into  my  study  of  imagination ; 
And  every  lovely  organ  of  thy  life 
Shall  come  apparelled  in  mure  prei  ions  habit  — 
More  moving  delicate,  and  full  of  life, 
Into  the  eye  and  prospect  of  my  soul, 
Than  when  tiioa  livedst  indeed.'" 

Much  Ado  about  Nothing. 


J« 


'& 


ARTHUR  H.   HALLAM. 

tN  the  chancel  of  Clevedon  Church,  Somer- 
setshire, rest  the  mortal  remains  of  Arthur 
Henry  Hallam,  eldest  son  of  our  great 
philosophic  historian  and  critic,  —  and  the 
friend  to  whom  "  In  Memoriam  "  is  sacred.  This  place 
was  selected  by  his  father,  not  only  from  the  connection 
of  kindred,  being  the  burial-place  of  his  maternal  grand- 
father, Sir  Abraham  Elton,  but  likewise  "  on  account  of 
its  still  and  sequestered  situation,  on  a  lone  hill  that  over- 
hangs the  Bristol  Channel."  That  lone  hill,  with  its 
humble  old  church,  its  outlook  over  the  waste  of  waters, 
where  u  the  stately  ships  go  on,"  was,  we  doubt  not,  in 
Tennyson's  mind,  when  the  poem,  "  Break,  break,  break," 
which  contains  the  burden  of  that  volume  in  which  are 
enshrined  so  much  of  the  deepest  affection,  poetry,  phi- 
losophy, and  godliness,  rose  into  his  "  study  of  imagina- 
tion "  —  "  into  the  eye  and  prospect  of  his  soul."  1 

1  The  passage  from  Shakspeare  prefixed  to  this  paper,  contains 
probably  as  much  as  can  be  said  of  the  mental,  not  less  than  the 
affectionate  conditions,  under  which  such  a  record  as  In  Memoriam 
is  produced,  and  may  give  us  more  insight  into  the  imaginative  facul- 
ty's mode  of  working,  than  all  our  philosophizing  and  analysis.  It 
seems  to  let  out  with  the  fulness,  simplicity,  and  unconsciousness  of  a 
child  —  "Fancy's  Child" — the  secret  mechanism  or  procession  of 
the  greatest  creative  mind  our  race  has  produced.  Tn  itself,  it  has 
no  recondite  meaning,  it  answers  fully  its  own  sweet  purpose.    We 


244  REMAINS   OF 

"  Break,  break,  break, 

On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  0  sea ! 
And  I  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 
The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me. 

"  0  well  for  the  fisherman's  boy 

That  he  shouts  with  his  sister  at  play! 
0  well  for  the  sailor  lad 
That  he  sings  in  his  boat  on  the  bay ! 

"  And  the  stately  ships  go  on 
To  their  haven  under  the  hill ! 
But  0  for  the  touch  of  a  vanish'd  hand, 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still ! 

"  Break,  break,  break, 

At  the  foot  of  thy  crags,  O  sea ! 
But  the  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead 
Will  never  come  back  to  me." 

Out  of  these  few  simple  words,  deep  and  melancholy, 
and  sounding  as  the  sea,  as  out  of  a  well  of  the  living 

are  not  believers,  like  some  folks,  in  the  omniscience  of  even  Shak- 
speare.  But,  like  many  things  that -he  and  other  wise  men  and  many 
simple  children  say,  it  has  a  germ  of  universal  meaning,  which  it  is 
quite  lawful  to  bring  out.  of  it,  and  which  may  be  enjoyed  to  the  full 
without  any  wrong  to  its  own  original  beauty  and  fitness.  A  dew- 
drop  is  not  the  less  beautiful  that  it  illustrates  in  its  structure  the  law 
of  gravitation  which  holds  the  world  together,  and  by  which  "  the 
most  ancient  heavens  are  fresh  and  strong."  This  is  the  passage. 
The  Friar  speaking  of  Claudio,  hearing  that  Hero  "died  upon  his 
Word,"  says,  — 

"  The  idea  of  her  life  shall  sweetly  creep 
Into  his  study  of  imagination ; 
And  every  lovely  organ  of  her  life 
Shall  come  apparelled  in  more  precious  habit  — 
More  moving  delicate,  and  full  of  life, 
Into  th*  eye  and  prospect  of  his  soul, 
Than  when  she  lived  indeed." 

We  have  here  expressed  in  plain  language  the  imaginative  memory 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  245 

waters  of  love,  flows  forth  all  In  Memoriam,  as  a  stream 
flows  out  of  its  spring  —  all  is  here.  "  I  would  that  my 
tongue  could  utter  the  thoughts  that  arise  in  me,"  —  "  the 
touch  of  the  vanished  hand  —  the  sound  of  the  voice  that 
is  still,"  —  the  body  and  soul  of  his  friend.  Rising  as  it 
were  out  of  the  midst  of  the  gloom  of  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  — 

"  The  mountain  infant  to  the  sun  comes  forth 
Like  human  life  from  darkness; " 

and  how  its  waters  flow  on !  carrying  life,  beauty,  mag- 
nificence, —  shadows  and  happy  lights,  depths  of  black- 
ness, depths  clear  as  the  very  body  of  heaven.  How  it 
deepens  as  it  goes,  involving  larger  interests,  wider  views, 
"  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity,"  greater  affec- 
tions, but  still  retaining  its  pure  living  waters,  its  unfor- 

of  the  beloved  dead,  rising  upon  the  past,  like  moonlight  upon  mid- 
night, — 

"  The  gleam,  the  shadow,  and  the  peace  supreme." 

This  is  its  simple  meaning  —  the  statement  of  a  truth,  the  utterance 
of  personal  feeling.  But  observe  its  hidden  abstract  significance  —  it 
is  the  revelation  of  what  goes  on  in  the  depths  of  the  soul,  when  the 
dead  elements  of  what  once  was,  are  laid  before  the  imagination,  and 
so  breathed  upon  as  to  be  quickened  into  a  new  and  higher  life.  "We 
have  first  the  Idea  of  her  Life  —  all  he  remembered  and  felt  of  her, 
gathered  into  one  vague  shadowy  image,  not  any  one  look,  or  action, 
or  time  —  then  the  idea  of  her  life  creeps  —  is  in  before  he  is  aware, 
and  sweetly  creeps,  —  it  might  have  been  softly  or  gently,  but  it  is 
the  addition  of  affection  to  all  this,  and  bringing  in  another  sense  — 
and  now  it  is  in  his  study  of  imagination  —  what  a  place !  fit  for  such  a 
visitor.  Then  out  comes  the  Idea,  more  particular,  more  questionable, 
but  still  ideal,  spiritual  —  every  lovely  organ  of  her  life  —  then  the  cloth- 
ing upon,  the  mortal  putting  on  its  immortal,  spiritual  body  —  shall 
~.ome  apparelled  in  more  precious  habit,  more  moving  delicate  —  this  is  the 
transfiguring,  the  putting  on  strength,  the  poco  piii  —  the  little  more 
which  makes  immortal,  —  more  full  of  life,  and  all  this  submitted  to 
—  the  eye  and  prospect  of  the  soul. 


246  REMAINS   OF 

gotten  burden  of  love  and  sorrow.  How  it  visits  every 
region  !  "  the  long  unlovely  street,"  pleasant  villages  and 
farms,  "  the  placid  ocean-plains,"  waste  howling  wilder* 
nesses,  grim  woods,  nemorumque  noctem,  informed  with 
spiritual  fears,  where  may  be  seen,  if  shapes  they  may 
be  called  — 

"  Fear  and  trembling  Hope, 
Silence  and  Foresight;  Death  the  Skeleton, 
And  Time  the  Shadow;  " 

now  within  hearing  of  the  Minster  clock,  now  of  the 
College  bells,  and  the  vague  hum  of  the  mighty  city. 
And  overhead  through  all  its  course  the  heaven  with 
its  clouds,  its  sun,  moon,  and  stars ;  but  always,  and  in 
all  places,  declaring  its  source  ;  and  even  when  laying 
its  burden  of  manifold  and  faithful  affection  at  the  feet 
of  the  Almighty  Father,  still  remembering  whence  it 
came,  — 

"  That  friend  of  mine  who  lives  in  God, 
That  God  which  ever  lives  and  loves; 

One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 

And  one  far-off  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

It  is  to  that  chancel,  and  to  the  day,  3d  January,  1834, 
rfiat  he  refers  in  poem  xviii.  of  In  Memoriam. 

"  'Tis  well,  'tis  something,  we  may  stand 
Where  he  in  English  earth  is  laid, 
And  from  his  ashes  may  be  made 
The  violet  of  his  native  land. 

"  'Tis  little;  but  it  looks  in  truth 
As  if  the  quiet  bones  were  blest 
Among  familiar  names  to  rest, 
And  in  the  places  of  his  youth." 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  247 


And  again  in  xix. :  — 


"  The  Danube  to  the  Severn  gave 

The  darken' d  heart  that  beat  no  more; 
They  laid  him  by  the  pleasant  shore, 
And  in  the  hearing  of  the  wave. 

"  There  twice  a  day  the  Severn  fills, 
The  salt  sea-water  passes  by, 
And  hushes  half  the  babbling  Wye, 
And  makes  a  silence  in  the  hills." 

Here,  too,  it  is,  lxvi.  :  — 

"When  on  my  bed  the  moonlight  falls,* 
I  know  that  in  thy  place  of  rest, 
By  that  broad  water  of  the  west; 
There  comes  a  glory  on  the  walls : 

"  Thy  marble  bright  in  dark  appears, 
As  slowly  steals  a  silver  flame 
Along  the  letters  of  thy  name, 
And  o'er  the  number  of  thy  years." 

This  young  man,  whose  memory  his  friend  has  con- 
secrated in  the  hearts  of  all  who  can  be  touched  by  such 
love  and  beauty,  was  in  nowise  unworthy  of  all  this.  It 
is  not  for  us  to  say,  for  it  was  not  given  to  us  the  sad 
privilege  to  know,  all  that  a  father's  heart  buried  with 
his  son  in  that  grave,  all  "  the  hopes  of  unaccomplished 
years ; "  nor  can  we  feel  in  its  fulness  all  that  is  meant  by 

"  Such 
A  friendship  as  had  mastered  Time; 
Which  masters  Time  indeed,  and  is 

Eternal,  separate  from  fears. 

The  all-assuming  months  and  years 
Can  take  no  part  away  from  this." 

But  this  we  may  say,  we  know  of  nothing  in  all  litera- 
ture to  compare  with  the  volume  from  which  these  lines 
are  taken,  since  David  lamented  with  this  lamentation : 
''  The  beauty  of  Israel  is  slain.     Ye  mountains  of  Gilboa, 


248  REMAINS  OF 

let  there  be  no  dew,  neither  rain  upon  you.  I  am  dis- 
tressed for  thee,  my  brother  Jonathan :  very  pleasant  hast 
thou  been  unto  me  ;  thy  love  for  me  was  wonderful." 
"We  cannot,  as  some  have  done,  compare  it  with  Shak- 
speare's  sonnets,  or  with  Lycidas.  In  spite  of  the  amaz- 
ing genius  and  tenderness,  the  never-wearying,  all-in- 
volving reiteration  of  passionate  attachment,  the  idolatry 
of  admiring  love,  the  rapturous  devotedness,  displayed  in 
these  sonnets,  we  cannot  but  agree  with  Mr.  Hallam  in 
thinking,  "  that  there  is  a  tendency  now,  especially  among 
young  men  of  poetical  tempers,  to  exaggerate  the  beau- 
ties of  these  remarkable  productions ; "  and  though  we 
would  hardly  say  with  him,  "  that  it  is  impossible  not  to 
wish  that  Shakspeare  had  never  written  them,"  giving 
us,  as  they  do,  and  as  perhaps  nothing  else  could  do,  such 
proof  of  a  power  of  loving,  of  an  amount  of  attendrisse- 
ment,  which  is  not  less  wonderful  than  the  bodying  forth 
of  that  myriad-mind  which  gave  us  Hamlet,  and  Lear, 
Cordelia,  and  Puck,  and  all  the  rest,  and  indeed  explain- 
ing to  us  how  he  could  give  us  all  these ;  —  while  we 
hardly  go  so  far,  we  agree  with  his  other  wise  words :  — 
"  There  is  a  weakness  and  folly  in  all  misplaced  and 
excessive  affection  ; "  which  in  Shakspeare's  case  is  the 
more  distressing,  when  we  consider  that  "  Mr.  W.  H., 
the  only  begetter  of  these  ensuing  sonnets,"  was,  in  all 
likelihood,  William  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  a  man 
of  noble  and  gallant  character,  but  always  of  licentious 
life. 

As  for  Lycidas,  we  must  confess  that  the  poetry  — 
and  we  all  know  how  consummate  it  is  —  and  not  the 
affection,  seems  uppermost  in  Milton's  mind,  as  it  is  in 
ours.  The  other  element,  though  quick  and  true,  has  no 
glory  through  reason  of  the  excellency  of  that  which 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  249 

invests  it.  But  there  is  no  such  drawback  in  In  Memo- 
riam.  The  purity,  the  temperate  but  fervent  goodness, 
the  firmness  and  depth  of  nature,  the  impassioned  logic, 
the  large,  sensitive,  and  liberal  heart,  the  reverence  and 
godly  fear,  of 

"  That  friend  of  mine  who  lives  in  God," 

which  from  these  Remains  we  know  to  have  dwelt  in 
that  young  soul,  give  to  In  Memoriam  the  character  of 
exactest  portraiture.  There  is  no  excessive  or  misplaced 
affection  here ;  it  is  all  founded  in  fact ;  while  every- 
where and  throughout  it  all,  affection  —  a  love  that  is 
wonderful — meets  us  first  and  leaves  us  last,  giving 
form  and  substance  and  grace,  and  the  breath  of  life  and 
love,  to  everything  that  the  poet's  thick-coming  fancies  so 
exquisitely  frame.  We  can  recall  few  poems  approach- 
ing to  it  in  this  quality  of  sustained  affection.  The  only 
English  poems  we  can  think  of  as  of  the  same  order,  are 
Cowper's  lines  on  seeing  his  mother's  portrait : — 

"  0  that  these  lips  had  language !  " 

Burns  to  u  Mary  in  Heaven ; "  and  two  pieces  of  Vaughan 
—  one  beginning 

"  0  thou  who  know'st  for  whom  I  mourn ; " 

and  the  other  — 

"  They  are  all  gone  into  the  world  of  light." 

But  our  <~.:  'ect  now  is,  not  so  much  to  illustrate  Mr.  Ten- 
nyson's verses,  as  to  introduce  to  our  readers  what  we 
ourselves  have  got  so  much  delight,  and,  we  trust,  profit 
from  —  The  Remains,  in  Verse  and  Prose,  of  Arthur 
Henry  ffallam,  1834;  privately  printed.  We  had  for 
many  years  been  searching  for  this  volume,  but  in  vain ; 


250  REMAINS   OF 

a  sentence  quoted  by  Henry  Taylor  struck  us,  and  our 
desire  was  quickened  by  reading  In  Memoriam.  We  do 
not  remember  when  we  have  been  more  impressed  than 
by  these  Remains  of  this  young  man,  especially  when 
taken  along  with  his  friend's  Memorial ;  and  instead  of 
trying  to  tell  our  readers  what  this  impression  is,  we  hav<? 
preferred  giving  them  as  copious  extracts  as  our  space 
allows,  that  they  may  judge  and  enjoy  for  themselves. 
The  italics  are  our  own.  We  can  promise  them  few 
finer,  deeper,  and  better  pleasures  than  reading,  and  de- 
taining their  minds  over  these  two  books  together,  filling 
their  hearts  with  the  fulness  of  their  truth  and  tenderness. 
They  will  see  how  accurate  as  well  as  how  affectionate 
and  "of  imagination  all  compact"  Tennyson  is,  and  how 
worthy  of  all  that  he  has  said  of  him,  that  friend  was. 
The  likeness  is  drawn  ad  vivum,  — 

"  When  to  the  sessions  of  sweet  silent  thought 
He  summons  up  remembrance  of  things  past." 

"  The  idea  of  his  Life  "  has  been  sown  a  natural  body, 
and  has  been  raised  a  spiritual  body,  but  the  identity  is 
unhurt ;  the  countenance  shines  and  the  raiment  is  white 
and  glistering,  but  it  is  the  same  face  and  form. 

The  Memoir  is  by  Mr.  Hallam.  We  give  it  entire, 
not  knowing  anywhere  a  nobler  or  more  touching  record 
of  a  father's  love  and  sorrow. 

"  Arthur  Henry  Hallam  was  born  in  Bedford  Place,1 

1  "  Dark  house,  by  which  once  more  I  stand 
Here  in  the  long  unlovely  street ; 
Doors,  where  my  heart  was  wont  to  heat 
So  quickly,  waiting  for  a  hand."  —  In  Memoriam.  ^ 

This  is  a  mistake,  as  his  friend  Dr.  A.  P.  Stanley  thus  corrects:  — 
"  '  The  long  unlovely  street '  was  Wimpole  Street,  No.  67,  where  th« 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  251 

London,  on  the  1st  of  February,  1811.  Very  few  years 
bad  elapsed  before  his  parents  observed  strong  indica- 
tions of  his  future  character,  in  a  peculiar  clearness  of 
perception,  a  facility  of  acquiring  knowledge,  and,  above 
all,  in  an  undeviating  sweetness  of  disposition,  and  ad- 
herence to  his  sense  of  what  was  right  and  becoming. 
As  he  advanced  to  another  stage  of  childhood,  it  was 
rendered  still  more  manifest  that  he  would  be  distin 
guished  from  ordinary  persons,  by  an  increasing  thought- 
fulness,  and  a  fondness  for  a  class  of  books,  which  in 
general  are  so  little  intelligible  to  boys  of  his  age,  that 
they  excite  in  them  no  kind  of  interest. 

"  In  the  summer  of  1818  he  spent  some  months  with 
his  parents  in   Germany  and   Switzerland,  and  became 
familiar  with  the  French  language,  which  he  had  already 
learned  to  read  with  facility.     He  had  gone  through  the 
elements  of  Latin  before  this  time  ;   but  that  language 
having   been   laid    aside  during  his  tour,  it  was  found 
upon  his  return   that,  a   variety  of  new  scenes  having 
effaced  it  from  his  memory,  it  was   necessary  to  begin 
again   with  the  first  rudiments.     He  was  nearly   eight 
years  old  at  this  time  ;  and  in  little  more  than  twelve 
months  he  could  read  Latin  with  tolerable  facility.     In 
this  period  his  mind  was  developing  itself  more  rapidly 
than  before ;  he  now  felt  a  keen  relish  for  dramatic  poe- 
try, and  wrote  several  tragedies,  if  we  may  so  call  them 
either  in  prose  or  verse,  with  a  more  precocious  display 
of  talents  than  the  Editor  remembers  to  have  met  witl 
in  any  other  individual.     The  natural  pride,  however,  of 
his  parents,  did  not  blind  them  to  the  uncertainty  that 
belongs  to  all  premature  efforts  of  the  mind ;  and  they 

Hallams  lived ;  and  Arthur  used  to  say  to  his  friends,    You  know  yon 
will  always  find  us  at  sixes  and  sevens.'  " 


252  REMAINS  OF 

go  carefully  avoided  everything  like  a  boastful  display  of 
blossoms  which,  in  many  cases,  have  withered  away  in 
barren  luxuriance,  that  the  circumstance  of  these  composi- 
tions was  hardly  ever  mentioned  out  of  their  own  family. 
"  In  the  spring  of  1820,  Arthur  was  placed  under  the 
Rev.  "W.  Carmalt,  at  Putney,  where  he  remained  nearly 
two  years.     After  leaving  this  school  he  went  abroad 
again  for  some  months ;  and  in  October,  1822,  became 
the  pupil  of  the  Rev.  E.  C.  Hawtrey,  an  Assistant  Master 
of  Eton  College.     At  Eton  he  continued  till  the  summer 
of  1827.     He  was  now  become  a  good  though  not  per- 
haps a  first-rate  scholar  in  the   Latin  and   Greek   lan- 
guages.    The  loss  of  time,  relatively  to  this  object,  in 
travelling,  but  far  more  his  increasing  avidity  for  a  dif- 
ferent kind  of  knowledge,   and  the   strong  bent  of  his 
mind  to  subjects  which  exercise  other  faculties  than  such 
as  the  acquirement  of  languages  calls  into  play,  will  suf- 
ficiently account   for  what   might   seem   a   comparative 
deficiency  in  classical  learning.     It  can  only,  however, 
be  reckoned  one,  comparatively  to  his  other  attainments, 
and  to  his  remarkable  facility  in  mastering  the  modern 
languages.     The  Editor  has  thought  it  not  improper  to 
print  in  the  following  pages  an  Eton  exercise,  which,  as 
written  before  the  age  of  fourteen,  though  not  free  from 
metrical  and  other  errors,  appears,  perhaps  to  a  partial 
judgment,  far  above  the  level  of  such  compositions.     It 
is  remarkable  that  he  should  have  selected  the  story  of 
TJgolino,  from  a  poet  Avith  whom,  and  with  whose  lan- 
guage, he  was  then  but  very  slightly  acquainted,  but  who 
was  afterwards  to  become,  more  perhaps  than  any  other, 
the  master-mover  of  his  spirit.     It  may  be  added,  that 
great  judgment  and  taste  are  perceptible  in  this  transla- 
tion, which  is  by  no  means  a  literal  one ;  and  in  which 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  253 

the  phraseology  of  Sophocles  is  not  ill  substituted,  in 
Bome  passages,  for  that  of  Dante. 

"  The  Latin  poetry  of  an  Etonian  is  generally  reck- 
oned at  that  School  the  chief  test  of  his  literary  talent. 
That  of  Arthur  was  good  without  being  excellent ;  he 
never  wanted  depth  of  thought,  or  truth  of  feeling ;  but 
it  is  only  in  a  few  rare  instances,  if  altogether  in  any, 
that  an  original  mind  has  been  known  to  utter  itself 
freely  and  vigorously,  without  sacrifice  of  purity,  in  a 
language  the  capacities  of  which  are  so  imperfectly  un- 
derstood ;  and  in  his  productions  there  was  not  the 
thorough  conformity  to  an  ancient  model  which  is  re- 
quired for  perfect  elegance  in  Latin  verse.  He  took  no 
great  pleasure  in  this  sort  of  composition  ;  and  perhaps 
never  returned  to  it  of  his  own  accord. 

"  In  the  latter  part  of  his  residence  at  Eton,  he  was 
led  away  more  and  more  by  the  predominant  bias  of  his 
mind,  from  the  exclusive  study  of  ancient  literature. 
The  poets  of  England,  especially  the  older  dramatists, 
came  with  greater  attraction  over  his  spirit.  He  loved 
Fletcher,  and  some  of  Fletcher's  contemporaries,  for 
their  energy  of  language  and  intenseness  of  feeling  ;  but 
it  was  in  Shakspeare  alone  that  he  found  the  fulness 
of  soul  which  seemed  to  slake  the  thirst  of  his  own  rap- 
idly expanding  genius  for  an  inexhaustible  fountain  of 
thought  and  emotion.  He  knew  Shakspeare  thoroughly  ; 
and  indeed  his  acquaintance  with  the  earlier  poetry  of 
this  country  was  very  extensive.  Among  the  modern 
poets,  Byron  was  at  this  time,  far  above  the  rest,  and 
almost  exclusively,  his  favorite ;  a  preference  which,  in 
later  years,  he  transferred  altogether  to  Wordsworth  and 
Shelley. 

"  He  became,  when  about  fifteen  years  old,  a  member 


254  REMAINS  OF 

of  the  debating  society  established  among  the  elder  boys, 
in  which  he  took  great  interest ;  and  this  served  to  con- 
firm the  bias  of  his  intellect  towards  the  moral  and 
political  philosophy  of  modern  times.  It  was  probably, 
however,  of  important  utility  in  giving  him  that  com 
mand  of  his  own  language  which  he  possessed,  as  the 
following  Essays  will  show,  in  a  very  superior  degree, 
and  in  exercising  those  powers  of  argumentative  discus- 
sion, which  now  displayed  themselves  as  eminently  char- 
acteristic of  his  mind.  It  was  a  necessary  consequence 
that  he  declined  still  more  from  the  usual  paths  of  study, 
and  abated  perhaps  somewhat  of  his  regard  for  the  writ- 
ers of  antiquity.  It  must  not  be  understood,  neverthe- 
less, as  most  of  those  who  read  these  pages  will  be 
aware,  that  he  ever  lost  his  sensibility  to  those  ever-liv- 
ing effusions  of  genius  which  the  ancient  languages 
preserve.  He  loved  JEschylus  and  Sophocles  (to  Eu- 
ripides he  hardly  did  justice),  Lucretius  and  Virgil ; 
if  he  did  not  seem  so  much  drawn  towards  Homer  as 
might  at  first  be  expected,  this  may  probably  be  ac- 
counted for  by  his  increasing  taste  for  philosophical 
poetry. 

"  In  the  early  part  of  1827,  Arthur  took  a  part  in 
the  Eton  Miscellany,  a  periodical  publication,  in  which 
some  of  his  friends  in  the  debating  society  were  con- 
cerned. He  wrote  in  this,  besides  a  few  papers  in  prose, 
a  little  poem  on  a  story  connected  with  the  Lake  of  Kil- 
larney.  It  has  not  been  thought  by  the  Editor  advisable, 
upon  the  whole,  to  reprint  these  lines  ;  though,  in  hia 
opinion,  they  bear  very  striking  marks  of  superior  pow- 
ers. This  was  almost  the  first  poetry  that  Arthur  had 
written,  except  the  childish  tragedies  above  mentioned. 
No  one  was  ever  less  inclined  to  the  trick  of  versifying 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  255 

Poetry  with  him  was  not  an  amusement,  but  the  natural 
and  almost  necessary  language  of  genuine  emotion  ;  and 
it  was  not  till  the  discipline  of  serious  reflection,  and  the 
approach  of  manhood,  gave  a  reality  and  intenseness  to 
such  emotions,  that  he  learned  the  capacities  of  his  own 
genius.  That  he  was  a  poet  by  nature,  these  Remains 
will  sufficiently  prove  ;  but  certainly  he  was  far  removed 
from  being  a  versifier  by  nature ;  nor  was  he  probably 
able  to  perform,  what  he  scarce  ever  attempted,  to  write 
easily  and  elegantly  on  an  ordinary  subject.  The  lines 
on  the  story  of  Pygmalion  are  60  far  an  exception,  that 
they  arose  out  of  a  momentary  amusement  of  society  ; 
but  he  could  not  avoid,  even  in  these,  his  own  grave 
tone  of  poetry. 

"  Upon  leaving  Eton  in  the  summer  of  1827,  he  ac- 
companied his  parents  to  the  Continent,  and  passed  eight 
months  in  Italy.  This  introduction  to  new  scenes  of 
nature  and  art,  and  to  new  sources  of  intellectual  delight, 
at  the  very  period  of  transition  from  boyhood  to  youth, 
sealed  no  doubt  the  peculiar  character  of  his  mind,  and 
taught  him,  too  soon  for  his  peace,  to  sound  those  depths 
of  thought  and  feeling,  from  which,  after  this  time,  all 
that  he  wrote  was  derived.  He  had,  when  he  passed 
the  Alps,  only  a  moderate  acquaintance  with  the  Italian 
language  ;  but  during  his  residence  in  the  country  he 
came  to  speak  it  with  perfect  fluency,  and  with  a  pure 
Sienese  pronunciation.  In  its  study  he  was  much  as- 
sisted by  his  friend  and  instructor,  the  Abbate  Pifferi, 
who  encouraged  him  to  his  first  attempts  at  versification. 
The  few  sonnets,  which  are  now  printed,  were,  it  is  to 
be  remembered,  written  by  a  foreigner,  hardly  seventeen 
years  old,  and  after  a  very  short  stay  in  Italy.  The 
Editor  might  not,  probably,  have  suffered  them  to  ap- 


256  REMAINS  OF 

pear,  even  in  this  private  manner,  upon  his  own  judg 
ment.  But  he  knew  that  the  greatest  living  writer  of 
Italy,  to  whom  they  were  shown  some  time  since  at 
Milan,  by  the  author's  excellent  friend,  Mr.  Richard 
Milnes,  has  expressed  himself  in  terms  of  high  appro- 
bation. 

"  The  growing  intimacy  of  Arthur  with  Italian  poetry 
led  him  naturally  to  that  of  Dante.  No  poet  was  so 
congenial  to  the  character  of  his  own  reflective  mind  ; 
in  none  other  could  he  so  abundantly  find  that  disdain 
of  flowery  redundance,  that  perpetual  preference  of  the 
sensible  to  the  ideal,  that  aspiration  for  somewhat  better 
and  less  fleeting  than  earthly  things,  to  which  his  inmost 
6oul  responded.  Like  all  genuine  worshippers  of  the 
great  Florentine  poet,  he  rated  the  Inferno  below  the 
two  latter  portions  of  the  Divina  Commedia  ;  there  was 
nothing  even  to  revolt  his  taste,  but  rather  much  to  at- 
tract it,  in  the  -scholastic  theology  and  mystic  visions  of 
the  Paradiso.  Petrarch  he  greatly  admired,  though 
with  less  idolatry  than  Dante ;  and  the  sonnets  here 
printed  will  show  to  all  competent  judges  how  fully  he 
had  imbibed  the  spirit,  without  servile  centonism,  of  the 
best  writers  in  that  style  of  composition  who  flourished 
in  the  16th  century. 

"  But  poetry  was  not  an  absorbing  passion  at  this  time 
in  his  mind.  His  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  best  pictures 
with  silent  intense  delight.  He  had  a  deep  and  just 
perception  of  what  was  beautiful  in  this  art,  at  least  in 
its  higher  schools ;  for  he  did  not  pay  much  regard,  or 
perhaps  quite  do  justice,  to  the  masters  of  the  17th  cen- 
tury. To  technical  criticism  he  made  no  sort  of  preten- 
sion ;  painting  was  to  him  but  the  visible  language  of 
emotion  ;  and  where  it   did  not  aim  at  exciting  it,  or 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  257 

employed  inadequate  means,  his  admiration  would  be 
withheld.  Hence  he  highly  prized  the  ancient  paintings, 
both  Italian  and  German,  of  the  age  which  preceded  the 
full  development  of  art.  But  he  was  almost  as  enthu- 
siastic an  admirer  of  the  Venetian,  as  of  the  Tuscan 
and  Roman  schools  ;  considering  these  masters  as  reach- 
ing the  same  end  by  the  different  agencies  of  form  and 
color.  This  predilection  for  the  sensitive  beauties  of 
painting  is  somewhat  analogous  to  his  fondness  for  har- 
mony of  verse,  on  which  he  laid  more  stress  than  poets 
so  thoughtful  are  apt  to  do.  In  one  of  the  last  days  of 
his  life,  he  lingered  long  among  the  fine  Venetian  pic- 
tures of  the  Imperial  Gallery  at  Vienna. 

"  He  returned  to  England  in  June,  1828  ;  and,  in  the 
following  October,  went  down  to  reside  at  Cambridge ; 
having  been  entered  on  the  boards  of  Trinity  College 
before  his  departure  to  the  Continent.  He  was  the 
pupil  of  the  Rev.  William  Whewell.  In  some  respects, 
as  soon  became  manifest,  he  was  not  formed  to  obtain 
great  academical  reputation.  An  acquaintance  with  the 
learned  languages,  considerable  at  the  school  where  he 
was  educated,  but  not  improved,  to  say  the  least,  by 
the  intermission  of  a  year,  during  which  his  mind  had 
been  so  occupied  by  other  pursuits,  that  he  had  thought 
little  of  antiquity  even  in  Rome  itself,  though  abundantly 
sufficient  for  the  gratification  of  taste  and  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge,  was  sure  to  prove  inadequate  to  the  search- 
ing scrutiny  of  modern  examinations.  He  soon,  there- 
fore, saw  reason  to  renounce  all  competition  of  this  kind ; 
nor  did  he  ever  so  much  as  attempt  any  Greek  or  Latin 
composition  during  his  stay  at  Cambridge.  In  truth  he 
was  very  indifferent  to  success  of  this  kind  ;  and  con- 
scious as  he  must  have  been  of  a  high  reputation  among 
17 


258  REMAINS  OF 

his  contemporaries,  he  could  not  think  that  he  stood  in 
need  of  any  University  distinctions.  The  Editor  became 
by  degrees  almost  equally  indifferent  to  what  he  per- 
ceived to  be  so  uncongenial  to  Arthur's  mind.  It  was 
however  to  be  regretted,  that  he  never  paid  the  least 
attention  to  mathematical  studies.  That  he  should  not 
prosecute  them  with  the  diligence  usual  at  Cambridge, 
was  of  course  to  be  expected ;  yet  his  clearness  and 
acumen  would  certainly  have  enabled  him  to  master  the 
principles  of  geometrical  reasoning ;  nor,  in  fact,  did  he 
so  much  find  a  difficulty  in  apprehending  demonstrations, 
as  a  want  of  interest,  and  a  consequent  inability  to  retain 
them  in  his  memory.  A  little  more  practice  in  the  strict 
logic  of  geometry,  a  little  more  familiarity  with  the  physi- 
cal laws  of  the  universe,  and  the  phenomena  to  which 
they  relate,  would  possibly  have  repressed  the  tendency 
to  vague  and-  mystical  speculations  which  he  was  too 
fond  of  indulging.  In  the  philosophy  of  the  human  mind, 
he  was  in  no  danger  of  the  materializing  theories  of 
some  ancient  and  modern  schools  ;  but  in  shunning  this 
extreme,  he  might  sometimes  forget  that,  in  the  honest 
pursuit  of  truth,  we  can  shut  our  eyes  to  no  real  phe- 
nomena, and  that  the  physiology  of  man  must  always 
enter  into  any  valid  scheme  of  his  psychology. 

"  The  comparative  inferiority  which  he  might  show 
in  the  usual  trials  of  knowledge,  sprung  in  a  great 
measure  from  the  want  of  a  prompt  and  accurate  mem- 
ory. It  was  the  faculty  wherein  he  shone  the  least, 
according  to  ordinary  observation  ;  though  his  very  ex- 
tensive reach  of  literature,  and  his  rapidity  in  acquiring 
languages,  sufficed  to  prove  that  it  was  capable  of  being 
largely  exercised.  He  could  remember  anything,  as  a 
friend  observed  to  the  Editor,  that  was  associated  with 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  259 

an  idea.  But  he  seemed,  at  least  after  he  reached  man- 
hood, to  want  almost  wholly  the  power,  so  common  with 
inferior  understandings,  of  retaining  with  regularity  and 
exactness,  a  number  of  unimportant  uninteresting  partic- 
ulars. It  would  have  been  nearly  impossible  to  make 
him  recollect  for  three  days  the  date  of  the  battle  of 
Marathon,  or  the  names  in  order  of  the  Athenian  months. 
Nor  could  he  repeat  poetry,  much  as  he  loved  it,  with 
the  correctness  often  found  in  young  men.  It  is  not 
improbable,  that  a  more  steady  discipline  in  early  life 
would  have  strengthened  this  faculty,  or  that  he  might 
have  supplied  its  deficiency  by  some  technical  devices  ; 
but  where  the  higher  powers  of  intellect  were  so  extra- 
ordinarily manifested,  it  would  have  been  preposterous 
to  complain  of  what  may  perhaps  have  been  a  necessary 
consequence  of  their  amplitude,  or  at  least  a  natural 
result  of  their  exercise. 

"  But  another  reason  may  be  given  for  his  deficiency 
in  those  unremitting  labors  which  the  course  of  academi- 
cal education,  in  the  present  times,  is  supposed  to  exact 
from  those  who  aspire  to  its  distinctions.  In  the  first 
year  of  his  residence  at  Cambridge,  symptoms  of  dis- 
ordered health,  especially  in  the  circulatory  system,  began 
to  show  themselves  ;  and  it  is  by  no  means  improbable, 
that  these  were  indications  of  a  tendency  to  derangement 
of  the  vital  functions,  which  become  ultimately  fatal. 
A  too  rapid  determination  of  blood  towards  the  brain, 
with  its  concomitant  uneasy  sensations,  rendered  him 
frequently  incapable  of  mental  fatigue.  He  had  indeed 
once  before,  at  Florence,  been  affected  by  symptoms  not 
unlike  these.  His  intensity  of  reflection  and  feeling  also 
brought  on  occasionally  a  considerable  depression  of  spirits, 
which  had  been  painfully  observed  at  times  by  those  who 


260  REMAINS   OF 

watched  him  most,  from  the  time  of  his  leaving  Eton,  and 
even  before.  It  was  not  till  after  several  months  that 
he  regained  a  less  morbid  condition  of  mind  and  body. 
This  same  irregularity  of  circulation  returned  again  in 
the  next  spring,  but  was  of  less  duration.  During  the 
third  year  of  his  Cambridge  life,  he  appeared  in  much 
better  health. 

"  In  this  year  (1831)  he  obtained  the  first  college  prize 
for  an  English  declamation.  The  subject  chosen  by  him 
was  the  conduct  of  the  Independent  party  during  the 
civil  war.  This  exercise  was  greatly  admired  at  the 
time,  but  was  never  printed.  In  consequence  of  this 
success,  it  became  incumbent  on  him,  according  to  the 
custom  of  the  college,  to  deliver  an  oration  in  the  chapel 
immediately  before  the  Christmas  vacation  of  the  same 
year.  On  this  occasion  he  selected  a  subject  very  con- 
genial to  his  own  turn  of  thought  and  favorite  study,  the 
influence  of  Italian  upon  English  literature.  He  had 
previously  gained  another  prize  for  an  English  essay  on 
the  philosophical  writings  of  Cicero.  This  essay  is  per- 
haps too  excursive  from  the  prescribed  subject ;  but  his 
mind  was  so  deeply  imbued  with  the  higher  philosophy, 
especially  that  of  Plato,  with  which  he  was  very  con- 
versant, that  he  could  not  be  expected  to  dwell  much  on 
the  praises  of  Cicero  in  that  respect. 

"  Though  the  bent  of  Arthur's  mind  by  no  means 
inclined  him  to  strict  research  into  facts,  he  was  full 
as  much  conversant  with  the  great  features  of  ancient 
and  modern  history,  as  from  the  course  of  his  other 
studies  and  the  habits  of  his  life  it  was  possible  to  ex- 
pect. He  reckoned  them,  as  great  minds  always  do, 
the  groundworks  of  moral  and  political  philosophy,  and 
took  no  pains  to  acquire  any  knowledge  of  this  sort  from 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  261 

which  a  principle  could  not  be  derived  or  illustrated.  To 
isoine  parts  of  English  history,  and  to  that  of  the  French 
Revolution,  he  had  paid  considerable  attention.  He  had 
not  read  nearly  so  much  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  histo- 
rians as  of  the  philosophers  and  poets.  In  the  history  of 
literary,  and  especially  of  philosophical  and  religious  opin- 
ions, he  was  deeply  versed,  as  much  so  as  it  is  possible  to 
apply  that  term  at  his  age.  The  following  pages  exhibit 
proofs  of  an  acquaintance,  not  crude  or  superficial,  with 
that  important  branch  of  literature. 

"  His  political  judgments  were  invariably  prompted  by 
his  strong  sense  of  right  and  justice.  These,  in  so  young 
a  person,  were  naturally  rather  fluctuating,  and  subject 
to  the  correction  of  advancing  knowledge  and  experience. 
Ardent  in  the  cause  of  those  he  deemed  to  be  oppressed, 
of  which,  in  one  instance,  he  was  led  to  give  a  proof  with 
more  of  energy  and  enthusiasm  than  discretion,  he  was 
deeply  attached  to  the  ancient  institutions  of  his  country. 

"  He  spoke  French  readily,  though  with  less  elegance 
than  Italian,  till  from  disuse  he  lost  much  of  his  fluency 
in  the  latter.  In  his  last  fatal  tour  in  Germany,  he  was 
rapidly  acquiring  a  readiness  in  the  language  of  that 
country.  The  whole  range  of  French  literature  was  al- 
most as  familiar  to  him  as  that  of  England. 

"  The  society  in  which  Arthur  lived  most  intimately,  at 
Eaton  and  at  the  University,  was  formed  of  young  men, 
eminent  for  natural  ability,  and  for  delight  in  what  he 
sought  above  all  things,  the  knowledge  of  truth,  and  the 
perception  of  beauty.  They  who  loved  and  admired  him 
living,  and  who  now  revere  his  sacred  memory,  as  of  one 
to  whom,  in  the  fondness  of  regret,  they  admit  of  no 
rival,  know  best  what  he  was  in  the  daily  commerce  of 
life  ;  and  his  eulogy  should,  on  every  account,  better  come 


262  REMAINS   OF 

from  hearts,  which,  if  partial,  have  been  rendered  so  by 
the  experience  of  friendship,  not  by  the  affection  of  na- 
ture. 

"Arthur  left  Cambridge  on  taking  his  degree  in  Janu- 
ary 1832.  He  resided  from  that  time  with  the  Editor 
in  London,  having  been  entered  on  the  boards  of  the  In- 
ner Temple.  It  was  greatly  the  desire  of  the  Editoi 
that  he  should  engage  himself  in  the  studj  of  the  law ; 
not  merely  with  professional  views,  but  as  a  useful  dis- 
cipline for  a  mind  too  much  occupied  with  habits  of 
thought,  which,  ennobling  and  important  as  they  were, 
could  not  but  separate  him  from  the  every-day  business 
of  life,  and  might,  by  their  excess,  in  his  susceptible  tem- 
perament, be  productive  of  considerable  mischief.  He 
had,  during  the  previous  long  vacation,  read  with  the 
Editor  the  Institutes  of  Justinian,  and  the  two  works 
of  Heineccius  which  illustrate  them ;  and  he  now  went 
through  Blackstone's  Commentaries,  with  as  much  of 
other  law-books  as,  in  the  Editor's  judgment,  was  re- 
quired for  a  similar  purpose.  It  was  satisfactory  at 
that  time  to  perceive  that,  far  from  showing  any  of  that 
distaste  to  legal  studies  which  might  have  been  antici- 
pated from  some  parts  of  his  intellectual  character,  he 
entered  upon  them  not  only  with  great  acuteness,  but 
considerable  interest.  In  the  month  of  October  1832,  he 
began  to  see  the  practical  application  of  legal  knowledge 
in  the  office  of  an  eminent  conveyancer,  Mr.  Walters  of 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  with  whom  he  continued  till  his 
departure  from  England  in  the  following  summer. 

"  It  was  not,  however,  to  be  expected,  or  even  desired 
by  any  who  knew  how  to  value  him,  that  he  should  at 
once  abandon  those  habits  of  study  which  had  fertilized 
and   invigorated    his   mind.     But   he    now,    from    some 


ARTHUR  H.  HALL  AM.  263 

change  or  other  in  his  course  of  thinking,  ceased  in  a 
great  measure  to  write  poetry,  and  expressed  to  more 
than  one  friend  an  intention  to  give  it  up.  The  instances 
after  his  leaving  Cambridge  were  few.  The  dramatic 
scene  between  Raffaelle  and  Fiammetta  was  written 
in  1832 ;  and  about  the  same  time  he  had  a  design  to 
translate  the  Vita  Nuova  of  his  favorite  Dante ;  a  work 
which  he  justly  prized,  as  the  development  of  that  im- 
mense genius,  in  a  kind  of  autobiography,  which  best 
prepares  us  for  a  real  insight  into  the  Divine  Comedy. 
He  rendered  accordingly  into  verse  most  of  the  sonnets 
which  the  Vita  Nuova  contains  ;  but  the  Editor  does  not 
believe  that  he  made  any  progress  in  the  prose  trans- 
lation. These  sonnets  appearing  rather  too  literal,  and 
consequently  harsh,  it  has  not  been  thought  worth  while 
to  print. 

"In  the  summer  of  1832,  the  appearance  of  Professor 
Rosetti's  Disquisizioni  sullo  spirito  Antipapale,  in  which 
the  writings  of  Arthur's  beloved  masters,  Dante  and  Pe- 
trarch, as  well  as  most  of  the  mediaeval  literature  of  Italy, 
were  treated  as  a  series  of  enigmas,  to  be  understood  only 
by  a  key  that  discloses  a  latent  Carbonarism,  a  secret  con- 
spiracy against  the  religion  of  their  age,  excited  him  to 
publish  his  own  Remarks  in  reply.  It  seemed  to  him  the 
worst  of  poetical  heresies  to  desert  the  Absolute,  the  Uni- 
versal, the  Eternal,  the  Beautiful  and  True,  which  the 
Platonic  spirit  of  his  literary  creed  taught  him  to  seek  in 
all  the  higher  works  of  genius,  in  quest  of  some  tempo- 
rary historical  allusion,  which  could  be  of  no  interest  with 
posterity.  Nothing,  however,  could  be  more  alien  from 
his  courteous  disposition  than  to  abuse  the  license  of  con- 
troversy, or  to  treat  with  intentional  disrespect  a  very  in- 
genious person,  who  had  been  led  on  too  far  in  pursuing 


264  REMAINS  OF 

a  course  of  interpretation,  which,  within  certain  much 
narrower  limits,  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  conversant 
with  history  not  to  admit. 

"A  very  few  other  anonymous  writings  occupied  his 
leisure  about  this  time.  Among  these  were  slight  me- 
moirs of  Petrarch,  Voltaire,  and  Burke,  for  the  Gallery 
of  Portraits,  published  by  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion 
of  Useful  Knowledge.1  His  time  was,  however,  princi- 
pally devoted,  when  not  engaged  at  his  office,  to  meta- 
physical researches,  and  to  the  history  of  philosophical 
opinions. 

"  From  the  latter  part  of  his  residence  at  Cambridge,  a 
gradual  but  very  perceptible  improvement  in  the  cheer- 
fulness of  his  spirits  gladdened  his  family  and  his  friends ; 
intervals  there  doubtless  were,  when  the  continual  seri- 
ousness of  his  habits  of  thought,  or  the  force  of  circum- 
stances, threw  something  more  of  gravity  into  his  de- 
meanor ;  but  in  general  he  was  animated  and  even  gay, 
renewing  or  preserving  his  intercourse  with  some  of 
those  he  had  most  valued  at  Eton  and  Cambridge.  The 
symptoms  of  deranged  circulation  which  had  manifested 


1  We  had  read  these  Lives,  and  had  remarked  them,  before  we  knew 
whose  they  were,  as  being  of  rare  merit.  No  one  could  suppose  they 
were  written  by  one  so  young.  We  give  his  estimate  of  the  character 
of  Burke.  "  The  mind  of  this  great  man  may  perhaps  be  taken  as  a 
representation  of  the  general  characteristics  of  the  English  intellect. 
Its  groundwork  was  solid,  practical,  and  conversant  with  the  details  of 
business;  but  upon  this,  and  secured  by  this,  arose  a  superstructure  of 
imagination  and  moral  sentiment.  He  saw  little,  because  it  was  painful 
to  him  to  see  anything  beyond  the  limits  of  the  national  character.  In 
all  things,  while  he  deeply  reverenced  principles,  he  chose  to  deal  with 
the  concrete  rather  than  with  abstractions.  He  studied  men  rather 
than  man."  The  words  in  italics  imply  an  insight  into  the  deepest 
springs  of  human  action,  the  conjunct  causes  of  what  we  call  character 
such  as  few  men  of  large  experience  can  attain. 


ARTHUR  H.  HALL  AM.  265 

themselves  before,  ceased  to  appear,  or  at  least  so  as  tc 
excite  his  own  attention ;  and  though  it  struck  those  who 
were  most  anxious  in  watching  him,  that  his  power  of 
enduring  fatigue  was  not  quite  so  great  as  from  his  frame 
of  body  and  apparent  robustness  might  have  been  an- 
ticipated, nothing  gave  the  least  indication  of  danger 
either  to  their  eyes,  or  to  those  of  the  medical  practition- 
ers who  were  in  the  habit  of  observing  him.  An  attack 
of  intermittent  fever,  during  the  prevalent  influenza  of 
the  spring  of  1833,  may  perhaps  have  disposed  his  con- 
stitution to  the  last  fatal  blow." 

To  any  one  who  has  watched  the  history  of  the  disease 
by  which  "  so  quick  this  bright  thing  came  to  confusion," 
and  who  knows  how  near  its  subject  must  often,  perhaps 
all  his  life,  have  been  to  that  eternity  which  occupied  so 
much  of  his  thoughts  and  desires,  and  the  secrets  of 
which  were  so  soon  to  open  on  his  young  eyes,  there 
is  something  very  touching  in  this  account.  Such  a  state 
of  health  would  enhance,  and  tend  to  produce,  by  the 
sensations  proper  to  such  a  condition,  that  habitual  seri- 
ousness of  thought,  that  sober  judgment,  and  that  ten- 
dency to  look  at  the  true  life  of  things  —  that  deep  but 
gentle  and  calm  sadness,  and  that  occasional  sinking  of 
the  heart,  which  make  his  noble  and  strong  inner  nature, 
his  resolved  mind,  so  much  more  impressive  and  endear- 
ing. 

This  feeling  of  personal  insecurity  —  of  life  being 
ready  to  slip  away  —  the  sensation  that  this  world  and 
its  ongoings,  its  mighty  interests,  and  delicate  joys,  is 
ready  to  be  shut  up  in  a  moment  —  this  instinctive  ap- 
prehension of  the  peril  of  vehement  bodily  enjoyment  — 
all  this  would  tend  to  make  him  "  walk  softly,"  and  to 
keep  him  from  much  of  the  evil  that  is  in  the  world,  and 


266  REMAINS  OF 

would  help  him  to  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly 
even  in  the  bright  and  rich  years  of  his  youth.  His 
power  of  giving  himself  up  to  the  search  after  absolute 
truth,  and  the  contemplation  of  Supreme  goodness,  must 
have  been  increased  by  this  same  organization.  But  all 
this  delicate  feeling,  this  fineness  of  sense,  did  rather 
quicken  the  energy  and  fervor  of  the  indwelling  soul  — 
the  tl  Oep/jLov  Trpayfjia  that  burned  within.  In  the  quaint 
words  of  Vaughan,  it  was  "  manhood  with  a  female  eye." 
These  two  conditions  must,  as  we  have  said,  have  made 
him  dear  indeed.  And  by  a  beautiful  law  of  life,  having 
that  organ  out  of  which  are  the  issues  of  life,  under  a 
sort  of  perpetual  nearness  to  suffering,  and  so  liable  to 
pain,  he  would  be  more  easily  moved  for  others  —  more 
alive  to  their  pain  —  more  filled  with  fellow-feeling. 

"  The  Editor  cannot  dwell  on  anything  later.  Arthur 
accompanied  him  to  Germany  in  the  beginning  of  Au- 
gust. In  returning  to  Vienna  from  Pesth,  a  wet  day 
probably  gave  rise  to  an  intermittent  fever,  with  very 
slight  symptoms,  and  apparently  subsiding,  when  a  sud- 
den rush  of  blood  to  the  head  put  an  instantaneous  end 
to  his  life  on  the  15th  of  September  1833.  The  mys- 
teriousness  of  such  a  dreadful  termination  to  a  disorder 
generally  of  so  little  importance,  and  in  this  instance  of 
the  slightest  kind,  has  been  diminished  by  an  examina- 
tion which  showed  a  weakness  of  the  cerebral  vessels, 
and  a  want  of  sufficient  energy  in  the  heart.  Those 
whose  eyes  must  long  be  dim  with  tears,  and  whose 
hopes  on  this  side  the  tomb  are  broken  down  forever, 
may  cling,  as  well  as  they  can,  to  the  poor  consolation 
of  believing  that  a  few  more  years  would,  in  the  usual 
chances  of  humanity,  have  severed  the  frail  union  of  his 
graceful  and  manly  form  with  the  pure  spirit  that  it  en- 
shrined. 


ARTHUR  H.   HALLAM.  267 

"  The  remains  of  Arthur  were  brought  to  England; 
and  interred  on  the  3d  of  January  1834,  in  the  chancel 
of  Clevedon  Church  in  Somersetshire,  belonging  to  his 
maternal  grandfather  Sir  Abraham  Elton,  a  place  se- 
lected by  the  Editor,  not  only  from  the  connection  of 
kindred,  but  on  account  of  its  still  and  sequestered  sit- 
uation, on  a  lone  hill  that  overhangs  the  Bristol  Chan- 
nel. 

"  More  ought  perhaps  to  be  said  —  but  it  is  very  dif- 
ficult to  proceed.  From  the  earliest  years  of  this  ex- 
traordinary young  man,  his  premature  abilities  were 
not  more  conspicuous  than  an  almost  faultless  disposi- 
tion, sustained  by  a  more  calm  self-command  than  has 
often  been  witnessed  in  that  season  of  life.  The  sweet- 
ness of  temper  which  distinguished  his  childhood,  be- 
came with  the  advance  of  manhood  a  habitual  benevo- 
lence, and  ultimately  ripened  into  that  exalted  principle 
of  love  towards  God  and  man,  which  animated  and  al- 
most absorbed  his  soul  during  the  latter  period  of  his 
life,  and  to  which  most  of  the  following  compositions 
bear  such  emphatic  testimony.  He  seemed  to  tread  the 
earth  as  a  spirit  from  some  better  world ;  and  in  bowing 
to  the  mysterious  will  which  has  in  mercy  removed  him, 
perfected  by  so  short  a  trial,  and  passing  over  the  bridge 
which  separates  the  seen  from  the  unseen  life,  in  a  mo- 
ment, and,  as  we  may  believe,  without  a  moment's  pang, 
we  must  feel  not  only  the  bereavement  of  those  to  whom 
he  was  dear,  but  the  loss  which  mankind  have  sustained 
by  the  withdrawing  of  such  a  light. 

"A  considerable  portion  of  the  poetry  contained  in 
this  volume  was  printed  in  the  year  1830,  and  was  in- 
tended by  the  author  to  be  published  together  with  the 
poems   of  his   intimate   friend,   Mr.   Alfred    Tennyson. 


268  REMAINS  OF 

They  were  however  withheld  from  publication  at  the 
request  of  the  Editor.  The  poem  of  Timbuctoo  was 
written  for  the  University  prize  in  1829,  which  it  did 
not  obtain.  Notwithstanding  its  too  great  obscurity,  the 
subject  itself  being  hardly  indicated,  and  the  extremely 
hyperbolical  importance  which  the  author's  brilliant 
fancy  has  attached  to  a  nest  of  barbarians,  no  one  can 
avoid  admiring  the  grandeur  of  his  conceptions,  and  the 
deep  philosophy  upon  which  he  has  built  the  scheme 
of  his  poem.  This  is  however  by  no  means  the  most 
pleasing  of  his  compositions.  It  is  in  the  profound  re- 
flection, the  melancholy  tenderness,  and  the  religious 
sanctity  of  other  effusions  that  a  lasting  charm  will  be 
found.  A  commonplace  subject,  such  as  those  an- 
nounced for  academical  prizes  generally  are,  was  inca- 
pable of  exciting  a  mind  which,  beyond  almost  every 
other,  went  straight  to  the  farthest  depths  that  the  hu- 
man intellect  can  Tathom,  or  from  which  human  feelings 
can  be  drawn.  Many  short  poems  of  equal  beauty  with 
those  here  printed,  have  been  deemed  unfit  even  for  the 
limited  circulation  they  might  obtain,  on  account  of  their 
unveiling  more  of  emotion  than,  consistently  with  what 
is  due  to  him  and  to  others,  could  be  exposed  to  view. 

"  The  two  succeeding  essays  have  never  been  printed  ; 
but  were  read,  it  is  believed,  in  a  literary  society  at 
Trinity  College,  or  in  one  to  which  he  afterwards  be- 
longed in  London.  That  entitled  Theodiccea  Novissima, 
is  printed  at  the  desire  of  some  of  his  intimate  friends. 
A.  iew  expressions  in  it  want  his  usual  precision ;  and 
there  are  ideas  which  he  might  have  seen  cause,  in  the 
lapse  of  time,  to  modify,  independently  of  wha^  his  very 
acute  mind  would  probably  have  perceived,  that  his 
hypothesis,  like  that  of  Leibnitz,  on  the  origin  of  evil, 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  269 

resolves  itself  at  last  into  an  unproved  assumption  of  its 
necessity.  It  has  however  some  advantages,  which  need 
not  be  mentioned,  over  that  of  Leibnitz  ;  and  it  is  here 
printed,  not  as  a  solution  of  the  greatest  mystery  of  the 
universe,  but  as  most  characteristic  of  the  author's  mind, 
original  and  sublime,  uniting,  what  is  very  rare  except 
in  early  youth,  a  fearless  and  unblenching  spirit  of  in- 
quiry into  the  highest  objects  of  speculation,  with  the 
most  humble  and  reverential  piety.  It  is  probable  that 
in  many  of  his  views  on  such  topics  he  was  influenced 
by  the  writings  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  with  whose  opin- 
ions on  metaphysical  and  moral  subjects,  he  seems  gen- 
erally to  have  concurred. 

"  The  extract  from  a  review  of  Tennyson's  poems  in 
a  publication  now  extinct,  the  Englishman's  Magazine, 
is  also  printed  at  the  suggestion  of  a  friend.  The  pieces 
that  follow  are  reprints,  and  have  been  already  men- 
tioned in  this  Memoir." 

We  have  given  this  Memoir  almost  entire,  for  the 
sake  both  of  its  subject  and  its  manner  —  for  what  in  it 
is  the  father's  as  well  as  for  what  is  the  son's.  There 
is  something  very  touching  in  the  paternal  composure, 
the  judiciousness,  the  truthfulness,  where  truth  is  so  dif- 
ficult to  reach  through  tears,  the  calm  estimate  and  the 
subdued  tenderness,  the  ever-rising  but  ever  restrained 
emotion  ;  the  father's  heart  throbs  throughout. 

We  wish  we  could  have  given  in  full  the  letters  from 
Arthur's  friends,  which  his  father  has  incorporated  in  the 
Memoir.  They  all  bring  out  in  different  but  harmoni- 
ous ways,  his  extraordinary  moral  and  intellectual  worth, 
his  rare  beauty  of  character,  and  their  deep  affection. 

The  following  extract  from  one  seems  to  us  very  in- 
teresting :  —  "  Outwardly  I  do  not  think  there  was  any- 


270  REMAINS   OF 

thing  remarkable  in  his  habits,  except  an  irregularity 
with  regard  to  times  and  places  of  study,  which  may  seem 
surprising  in  one  whose  progress  in  so  many  directions 
was  so  eminently  great  and  rapid.  He  was  commonly  to 
be  found  in  some  friend's  room,  reading,  or  canvassing. 
I  dare  say  he  lost  something  by  this  irregularity,  but  less 
than  perhaps  one  would  at  first  imagine.  I  never  saw 
him  idle.  He  might  seem  to  be  lounging,  or  only 
amusing  himself,  but  his  mind  was  always  active,  and 
active  for  good.  In  fact,  his  energy  and  quickness  of 
apprehension  did  not  stand'  in  need  of  outward  aid." 
There  is  much  in  this  worthy  of  more  extended  notice. 
Such  minds  as  his  probably  grow  best  in  this  way,  are 
best  left  to  themselves  to  glide  on  at  their  own  sweet 
wills  ;  the  stream  was  too  deep  and  clear,  and  perhaps 
too  entirely  bent  on  its  own  errand,  to  be  dealt  with  or 
regulated  by  any  art  or  device.  The  same  friend  sums 
up  his  character  thus:  —  "I  have  met  with  no  man  his 
superior  in  metaphysical  subtlety ;  no  man  his  equal  as 
a  philosophical  critic  on  works  of  taste ;  no  man  whose 
views  on  all  subjects  connected  with  the  duties  and  dig- 
nities of  humanity  were  more  large,  and  generous,  and 
enlightened."  And  all  this  said  of  a  youth  of  twenty  — 
heu  nimium  brevis  cevi  decus  et  desiderium  ! 

We  have  given  little  of  this  verse  ;  and  what  we  do 
give  is  taken  at  random.  We  agree  entirely  in  his  fath- 
er's estimate  of  his  poetical  gift  and  art,  but  his  mind 
was  too  serious,  too  thoughtful,  too  intensely  dedicated  to 
truth  and  the  God  of  truth,  to  linger  long  in  the  pursuit 
of  beauty  ;  he  was  on  his  way  to  God,  and  could  rest  in 
nothing  short  of  Him,  otherwise  he  might  have  been  a 
poet  of  genuine  excellence. 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  271 

"  Dark,  dark,  yea,  '  irrecoverably  dark, 
Is  the  soul's  eye;  yet  how  it  strives  and  battles 
Thorough  th'  impenetrable  gloom  to  fix 
That  master  light,  the  secret  truth  of  things, 
Which  is  the  body  of  the  infinite  God !  " 

"  Sure,  we  are  leaves  of  one  harmonious  bower, 
Fed  by  a  sap  that  never  will  be  scant, 
All-permeating,  all-producing  mind; 
And  in  our  several  parcellings  of  doom 
We  but  fulfil  the  beauty  of  the  whole. 
Oh,  madness !  if  a  leaf  should  dare  complain 
Of  its  dark  verdure,  and  aspire  to  be 
The  gayer,  brighter  thing  that  wantons  near." 

"  Oh,  blessing  and  delight  of  my  young  heart, 

Maiden,  who  wast  so  lovely,  and  so  pure, 

I  know  not  in  what  region  now  thou  art, 

Or  whom  thy  gentle  eyes  in  joy  assure. 
Not  the  old  hills  on  which  we  gazed  together. 

Not  the  old  faces  which  we  both  did  love, 

Not  the  old  books,  whence  knowledge  we  did  gather, 

Not  these,  but  others  now  thy  fancies  move. 
I  would  I  knew  thy  present  hopes  and  fears, 

All  thy  companions  with  their  pleasant  talk, 

And  the  clear  aspect  which  thy  dwelling  wears : 
So,  though  in  body  absent,  I  might  walk 

With  thee  in  thought  and  feeling,  till  thy  mood 

Did  sanctify  mine  own  to  peerless  good." 

"  Alfred,  I  would  that  you  beheld  me  now, 
Sitting  beneath  a  mossy  ivied  wall 
On  a  quaint  bench,  which  to  that  structure  old 
Winds  an  accordant  curve.    Above  my  head 
Dilates  immeasurable  a  wild  of  leaves, 
Seeming  received  into  the  blue  expanse 
That  vaults  this  summer  noon." 

"  Still  here  —  thou  hast  not  faded  from  my  sight, 
Nor  all  the  music  round  thee  from  mine  ear  ; 
Still  grace  flows  from  thee  to  the  brightening  yewf.. 
And  all  the  birds  laugh  out  in  icealthier  light. 
Still' am  I  free  to  close  my  happy  eyes, 

And  paint  upon  the  gloom  thy  mimic  form, 
That  soft  white  neck,  that  cheek  in  beautv  warm, 


272  REMAINS   OF 

And  brow  half  hidden  where  yon  ringlet  lies : 
With,  oh !  the  blissful  knowledge  all  the  while 

That  I  can  lift  at  will  each  curved  lid, 

And  my  fair  dream  most  highly  realize. 
The  time  will  come,  'tis  ushered  by  my  sighs, 

When  I  may  shape  the  dark,  but  vainly  bid 

True  light  restore  that  form,  those  looks,  that  smile." 

"  The  garden  trees  are  busy  with  the  shower 

That  fell  ere  sunset :  now  methinks  they  talk, 

Lowly  and  sweetly  as  befits  the  hour, 

One  to  another  down  the  grassy  walk. 
Hark  the  laburnum  from  his  opening  flower, 

This  cherry  creeper  greets  in  whisper  light, 

While  the  grim  fir,  rejoicing  in  the  night, 

Hoarse  mutters  to  the  murmuring  sycamore,1 
What  shall  I  deem  their  converse?  would  they  hail 

The  wild  gray  light  that  fronts  yon  massive  cloud, 

Or  the  half  bow,  rising  like  pillar'd  fire? 
Or  are  they  fighting  faintly  for  desire 

That  with  May  dawn  their  leaves  may  be  o'erflowed, 

And  dews  about  their  feet  may  never  fail?  " 

In  the  Essay,  entitled  TTieodiccea  Novissima,  from  which 
the  following  passages  are  taken  to  the  great  injury  of 
its  general  effect,  he  sets  himself  to  the  task  of  doing  his 
utmost  to  clear  up  the  mystery  of  the  existence  of  such 
things  as  sin  and  suffering  in  the  universe  of  a  being  like 
God.  He  does  it  fearlessly,  but  like  a  child.  It  is  in  the 
spirit  of  his  friend's  words,  — 

"  An  infant  crying  in  the  night, 
An  infant  crying  for  the  light, 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry." 

•  This  will  remind  the  reader  of  a  fine  passage  in  Edwin  the  Fair, 
ou  the  specific  differences  in  the  sounds  made  by  the  ash,  the  elm,  the 
fir,  &c,  when  moved  by  the  wind;  and  of  some  lines  by  Landor  on 
flowers  speaking  to  each  other;  and  of  something  more" exquisite  than 
either,  in  Consuelo  —  the  description  of  the  flowers  in  the  old  monastic 
garden,  at  "  the  sweet  hour  of  prime." 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  273 

"  Then  was  I  as  a  child  that  cries, 

But,  crying,  knows  his  father  near." 

It  is  not  a  mere  exercitation  of  the  intellect,  it  is  an 
endeavor  to  get  nearer  God  —  to  assert  his  eternal 
Providence,  and  vindicate  his  ways  to  men.  "We  know 
no  performance  more  wonderful  for  such  a  boy.  Pascal 
might  have  written  it.  As  was  to  be  expected,  the  tre- 
mendous subject  remains  where  he  found  it  —  his  glowing 
love  and  genius  cast  a  gleam  here  and  there  across  its 
gloom ;  but  it  is  brief  as  the  lightning  in  the  collied 
night  —  the  jaws  of  darkness  do  devour  it  up  —  this  se- 
cret belongs  to  God.  Across  its  deep  and  dazzling  dark- 
ness, and  from  out  its  abyss  of  thick  cloud,  "  all  dark, 
dark,  irrecoverably  dark,"  no  steady  ray  has  ever,  or  will 
ever,  come,  —  over  its  face  its  own  darkness  must  brood, 
till  He  to  whom  alone  the  darkness  and  the  light  are 
both  alike,  to  whom  the  night  shineth  as  the  day,  says, 
"  Let  there  be  light !  "  There  is,  we  all  know,  a  certain 
awful  attraction,  a  nameless  charm  for  all  thoughtful 
spirits,  in  this  mystery,  "  the  greatest  in  the  universe," 
as  Mr.  Hallam  truly  says ;  and  it  is  well  for  us  at  times, 
so  that  we  have  pure  eyes  and  a  clean  heart,  to  turn 
aside  and  look  into  its  gloom ;  but  it  is  not  good  to  busy 
ourselves  in  clever  speculations  about  it,  or  briskly  to 
criticize  the  speculations  of  others  —  it  is  a  wise  and 
pious  saying  of  Augustin,  Verius  cogitatur  Deus,  quam 
dicitur  ;  et  verius  est  quam  cogitatur. 

"  I  wish  to  be  understood  as  considering  Christianity 
in  the  present  Essay  rather  in  its  relation  to  the  intellect, 
as  constituting  the  higher  philosophy,  than  in  its  far  more 
important  bearing  upon  the  hearts  and  destinies  of  us 
all.  I  shall  propose  the  question  in  this  form,  '  Is  there 
ground  for  believing  that  the  existence  of  moral  evil  is 

18 


274  REMAINS  OF 

absolutely  necessary  to  the  fulfilment  of  God's  essential 
love  for  Christ  ? '  (i.  e.,  of  the  Father  for  Chriut,  or  of 
6  irarrfp  for  6  Aoyos). 

"  '  Can  man  by  searching  find  out  God  ?  '  I  believe 
not.  I  believe  that  the  unassisted  efforts  of  man's  rea- 
son have  not  established  the  existence  and  attributes  of 
Deity  on  so  sure  a  basis  as  the  Deist  imagines.  How- 
ever sublime  may  be  the  notion  of  a  supreme  original 
mind,  and  however  naturally  human  feelings  adhered  to 
it,  the  reasons  by  which  it  was  justified  were  not,  in  my 
opinion,  sufficient  to  clear  it  from  considerable  doubt  and 
confusion.  ...  I  hesitate  not  to  say  that  I  derive 
from  Revelation  a  conviction  of  Theism,  which  without 
that  assistance  would  have  been  but  a  dark  and  ambio-- 
uous  hope.  /  see  that  the  Bible  Jits  into  every  fold  of  the 
human  heart.  I  am  a  man,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  God's 
booh  because  it  is  man's  booh.  It  is  true  that  the  Bible 
affords  me  no  additional  means  of  demonstrating  the 
falsity  of  Atheism ;  if  mind  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
formation  of  the  Universe,  doubtless  whatever  had  was 
competent  also  to  make  the  Bible  ;  but  I  have  gained  this 
advantage,  that  my  feelings  and  thoughts  can  no  longer 
refuse  their  assent  to  what  is  evidently  framed  to  engage 
that  assent  ;  and  what  is  it  to  me  that  I  cannot  disprove 
the  bare  logical  possibility  of  my  whole  nature  being 
fallacious  ?  To  seek  for  a  certainty  above  certainty,  an 
evidence  beyond  necessary  belief,  is  the  very  lunacy  of 
skepticism  :  we  must  trust  our  own  faculties,  or  we  can 
put  no  trust  in  anything,  save  that  moment  we  call  the 
present,  which  escapes  us  while  we  articulate  its  name. 
1  am  determined  therefore  to  receive  the  Bible  as  Divinely 
authorized,  and  the  scheme  of  human  and  Divine  things 
which  it  ccntains,  as  essentially  true." 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  275 

"  I  may  further  observe,  that  however  much  we 
should  rejoice  to  discover  that  the  eternal  scheme  of 
God  —  the  necessary  completion,  let  us  remember,  of 
his  Almighty  Nature  —  did  not  require  the  absolute 
perdition  of  any  spirit  called  by  Him  into  existence,  we 
are  certainly  not  entitled  to  consider  the  perpetual  mis- 
ery of  many  individuals  as  incompatible  with  sovereign 
love." 

"  In  the  Supreme  Nature  those  two  capacities  of 
Perfect  Love  and  Perfect  Joy  are  indivisible.  Holiness 
and  Happiness,  says  an  old  divine,  are  two  several  no- 
tions of  one  thing.  Equally  inseparable  are  the  notions 
of  Opposition  to  Love  and  Opposition  to  Bliss.  Unless 
therefore  the  heart  of  a  created  being  is  at  one  with  the 
heart  of  God,  it  cannot  but  be  miserable.  Moreover, 
there  is  no  possibility  of  continuing  forever  partly  with 
God  and  partly  against  him  ;  we  must  either  be  capable 
by  our  nature  of  entire  accordance  with  His  will,  or  we 
must  be  incapable  of  anything  but  misery,  further  than 
He  may  for  awhile  '  not  impute  our  trespasses  to  us,' 
that  is,  He  may  interpose  some  temporary  barrier  be- 
tween sin  and  its  attendant  pain.  For  in  the  Eternal 
Idea  of  God  a  created  spirit  is  perhaps  not  seen,  as  a 
series  of  successive  states,  of  which  some  that  are  evil 
might  be  compensated  by  others  that  are  good,  but  as  one 
indivisible  object  of  these  almost  infinitely  divisible  modes, 
and  that  either  in  accordance  with  His  own  nature,  or 
in  opposition  to  it.     .     .     . 

"  Before  the  gospel  was  preached  to  man,  how  could 
a  human  soul  have  this  love,  and  this  consequent  life  ? 
I  see  no  way  ;  but  now  that  Christ  has  excited  our  love 
for  him  by  showing  unutterable  love  for  us ;  now  that 
we  know  him   as  an  Elder  Brother,    a   being   of  like 


276  KEMAINS  OF 

thoughts,  feelings,  sensations,  sufferings,  with  ourselves, 
it  has  become  possible  to  love  as  God  loves,  that  is,  to 
love  Christ,  and  thus  to  become  united  in  heart  to  God. 
Besides,  Christ  is  the  express  image  of  God's  person ; 
in  loving  him  we  are  sure  we  are  in  a  state  of  readiness 
to  love  the  Father,  whom  we  see,  he  tells  us,  when  we 
see  him.  Nor  is  this  all ;  the  tendency  of  love  is  to- 
wards a  union  so  intimate  as  virtually  to  amount  to 
identification ;  when  then  by  affection  towards  Christ 
we  have  become  blended  with  his  being,  the  beams  of 
eternal  love,  falling,  as  ever,  on  the  one  beloved  object, 
will  include  us  in  him,  and  their  returning  flashes  of 
love  out  of  his  personality  will  carry  along  with  them 
some  from  our  own,  since  ours  has  become  confused 
with  his,  and  so  shall  we  be  one  with  Christ  and  through 
Christ  with  God.  Thus  then  we  see  the  great  effect  of 
the  Incarnation,  as  far  as  our  nature  is  concerned,  was 
to  render  human  lone  for  the  Most  High  a  possible  thing. 
The  Law  had  said,  '  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with  all 
thy  strength  ; '  and  could  men  have  lived  by  law,  '  which 
is  the  strength  of  sin,'  verily  righteousness  and  life 
would  have  been  by  that  law.  But  it  was  not  possible, 
and  all  were  concluded  under  sin,  that  in  Christ  might 
be  the  deliverance  of  all.  I  believe  that  Redemption  " 
(i.  e.,  what  Christ  has  done  and  suffered  for  mankind) 
"  is  universal,  in  so  far  as  it  left  no  obstacle  between 
man  and  God,  but  man's  own  will :  that  indeed  is  in  the 
power  of  God's  election,  with  whom  alone  rest  the  abys- 
mal secrets  of  personality  ;  but  as  far  as  Christ  is  con- 
cerned, his  death  was  for  all,  since  his  intentions  and 
affections  were  equally  directed  to  all,  and  '  none  who 
come  to  him  will  he  in  any  wise  cast  out.' 


AETHUR  H.  HALLAM.  277 

"  I  deprecate  any  hasty  rejection  of  these  thoughts  as 
novelties.  Christianity  is  indeed,  as  St.  Augustin  says, 
pulchritudo  tarn  antiqua  ; '  but  he  adds,  '  tarn  nova,'  for 
it  is  capable  of  presenting  to  every  mind  a  new  face  of 
truth.  The  great  doctrine,  which  in  my  judgment  these 
observations  tend  to  strengthen  and  illumine,  the  doctrine 
of  personal  love  for  a  personal  God,  is  assuredly  no 
novelty,  but  has  in  all  times  been  the  vital  principle  of 
the  Church.  Many  are  the  forms  of  antichristian  heresy, 
which  for  a  season  have  depressed  and  obscured  that 
principle  of  life ;  but  its  nature  is  connective  and  resur- 
gent ;  and  neither  the  Papal  Hierarchy  with  its  pomp 
of  systematized  errors,  not  the  worse  apostasy  of  latitu- 
dinarian  Protestantism,  have  ever  so  far  prevailed,  but 
that  many  from  age  to  age  have  proclaimed  and  vindi- 
cated the  eternal  gospel  of  love,  believing,  as  I  also  firmly 
believe,  that  any  opinion  which  tends  to  keep  out  of  sight 
the  living  and  loving  God,  wheuier  it  substitute  for  Him 
an  idol,  an  occult  agency,  or  a  formal  creed,  can  be  no- 
thing better  than  a  vain  and  portentous  shadow  projected 
from  the  selfish  darkness  of  unregenerate  man." 

The  following  is  from  the  Review  of  Tennyson's 
Poems ;  we  do  not  know  that  during  the  lapse  of  eigh- 
teen years  anything  better  has  been  said :  — 

"  Undoubtedly  the  true  poet  addresses  himself,  in  all 
his  conceptions,  to  the  common  nature  of  us  all.  Art 
is  a  lofty  tree,  and  may  shoot  up  far  beyond  our  grasp, 
but  its  roots  are  in  daily  life  and  experience.  Every 
bosom  contains  the  elements  of  those  complex  emotions 
which  the  artist  feels,  and  every  head  can,  to  a  certain 
extent,  go  over  in  itself  the  process  of  their  combina- 
tion, so  as  to  understand  his  expressions  and  sympathize 
with  his  state.     But  this  requires  exertion  ;  more  or  less, 


278  REMAINS  OF 

indeed,  according  to  the  difference  of  occasion,  but  al 
ways  some  degree  of  exertion.  For  since  the  emotions 
of  the  poet  during  composition  follow  a  regular  law  of 
association,  it  follows  that  to  accompany  their  progress  up 
to  the  harmonious  prospect  of  the  whole,  and  to  perceive 
the  proper  dependence  of  every  step  on  that  which  pre- 
ceded, it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  start  from  the  same 
point,  i.  e.,  clearly  to  apprehend  that  leading  sentiment 
of  the  poet's  mind,  by  their  conformity  to  which  the  host 
of  suggestions  are  arranged.  Now  this  requisite  exertion 
is  not  willingly  made  by  the  large  majority  of  readers. 
It  is  so  easy  to  judge  capriciously,  and  according  to  in- 
dolent impulse  !  " 

"  Those  different  powers  of  poetic  disposition,  the  en- 
ergies of  Sensitive,  of  Reflective,  or  Passionate  Emo- 
tion, which  in  former  times  were  intermingled,  and 
derived  from  mutual  support  an  extensive  empire  over 
the  feelings  of  men,  were  now  restrained  within  sepa- 
rate spheres  of  agency.  The  whole  system  no  longer 
worked  harmoniously,  and  by  intrinsic  harmony  acquired 
external  freedom ;  but  there  arose  a  violent  and  unu- 
sual action  in  the  several  component  functions,  each  for 
itself,  all  striving  to  reproduce  the  regular  power  which 
the  whole  had  once  enjoyed.  Hence  the  melancholy 
which  so  evidently  characterizes  the  spirit  of  modern  po- 
etry ;  hence  that  return  of  the  mind  upon  itself,  and  the 
habit  of  seeking  relief  in  idiosyncrasies  rather  than  com- 
munity of  interest.  In  the  old  times  the  poetic  impulse 
went  along  with  the  general  impulse  of  the  nation. 

"  One  of  the   faithful  Islam,  a  poet  in  the  truest  and 

highest  sense,  we  are  anxious  to  present  to  our  readers. 

.     .  He  sees  all  the  forms  of  Nature  with  the  '  erudi- 

tus  oculus,'  and  his  ear  has  a  fairy  fineness.     There  is  a 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  279 

strange  earnestness  in  his  worship  of  beauty,  which  throws 
a  charm  over  his  impassioned  song,  more  easily  felt  than 
described,  and  not  to  be  escaped  by  those  who  have  once 
felt  it.  We  think  that  he  has  more  definiteness  and 
roundness  of  general  conception  than  the  late  Mr.  Keats, 
and  is  much  more  free  from  blemishes  of  diction  and 
hasty  capriccios  of  fancy.  .  .  .  The  author  imitates 
nobody ;  we  recognize  the  spirit  of  his  age,  but  not  the 
individual  form  of  this  or  that  writer.  His  thoughts 
bear  no  more  resemblance  to  Byron  or  Scott,  Shelley 
or  Coleridge,  than  to  Homer  or  Calderon,  Ferdusi  or 
Calidasa.  We  have  remarked  five  distinctive  excel- 
lencies of  his  own  manner.  First,  his  luxuriance  of 
imagination,  and  at  the  same  time  his  control  over  it. 
Secondly,  his  power  of  embodying  himself  in  ideal  cha- 
racters, or  rather  modes  of  character,  with  such  extreme 
accuracy  of  adjustment,  that  the  circumstances  of  the 
narration  seem  to  have  a  natural  correspondence  with 
the  predominant  feeling,  and,  as  it  were,  to  be  evolved 
from  it  by  assimilative  force.  Thirdly,  his  vivid,  pic- 
turesque delineation  of  objects,  and  the  peculiar  skill 
with  which  he  holds  all  of  them  fused,  to  borrow  a 
metaphor  from  science,  in  a  medium  of  strong  emo- 
tion. Fourthly,  the  variety  of  his  lyrical  measures,  and 
exquisite  modulation  of  harmonious  words  and  cadences 
to  the  swell  and  fall  of  the  feelings  expressed.  Fifthly, 
ths  elevated  habits  of  thought,  implied  in  these  composi- 
tions, and  imparting  a  mellow  soberness  of  tone,  more 
impressive,  to  our  minds,  than  if  the  author  had  drawn 
up  a  set  of  opinions  in  verse,  and  sought  to  instruct 
the  understanding,  rather  than  to  communicate  the  love  of 
oeauty  to  the  heart." 

What  follows  is  justly  thought  and  well  said. 


280  REMAINS  OF 

"  And  is  it  not  a  noble  thing,  that  the  English  tongue 
is,  as  it  were,  the  common  focus  and  point  of  union  to 
which  opposite  beauties  converge  ?  Is  it  a  trifle  that 
we  temper  energy  with  softness,  strength  with  flexibility, 
capaciousness  of  sound  with  pliancy  of  idiom  ?  Soms, 
I  know,  insensible  to  these  virtues,  and  ambitious  of  I 
know  not  what  unattainable  decomposition,  prefer  to  uttei 
funeral  praises  over  the  grave  of  departed  Anglo-Saxon, 
or,  starting  with  convulsive  shudder,  are  ready  to  leap 
from  surrounding  Latinisms  into  the  kindred,  sympathetic 
arms  of  modern  German.  For  myself,  I  neither  share 
their  regret,  nor  their  terror.  Willing  at  all  times  to 
pay  filial  homage  to  the  shades  of  Hengist  and  Horsa, 
and  to  admit  they  have  laid  the  base  of  our  compound 
language  ;  or,  if  you  will,  have  prepared  the  soil  from 
which  the  chief  nutriment  of  the  goodly  tree,  our  Brit- 
ish oak,  must  be  derived,  I  am  yet  proud  to  confess  that 
I  look  with  sentiments  more  exulting  and  more  rev- 
erential to  the  bonds  by  which  the  law  of  the  universe 
has  fastened  me  to  my  distant  brethren  of  the  same 
Caucasian  race  ;  to  the  privileges  which  I,  an  inhabitant 
of  the  gloomy  North,  share  in  common  with  climates 
imparadised  in  perpetual  summer,  to  the  universality 
and  efficacy  resulting  from  blended  intelligence,  which, 
while  it  endears  in  our  eyes  the  land  of  our  fathers  as 
a  seat  of  peculiar  blessing,  tends  to  elevate  and  expand 
our  thoughts  into  communion  with  humanity  at  large  ; 
and,  in  the  '  sublimer  spirit  '  of  the  poet,  to  make  us  feel 

"  That  God  is  everywhere  —  the  God  who  framed 
Mankind  to  be  one  mighty  family, 
Himself  our  Father,  and  the  world  our  home." 

What   nice   shading   of  thought   do   his    remarks    on 
Petrarch  discover ! 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  28J 

"  But  it  is  not  so  much  to  his  direct  adoptions  that  I 
refer,  as  to  the  general  modulation  of  thought,  that  clear 
softness  of  his  images,  that  energetic  self-possession  of 
his  conceptions,  and  that  melodious  repose  in  which  are 
held  together  all  the  emotions  he  delineates." 

Every  one  who  knows  anything  of  himself,  and  of 
his  fellow-men,  will  acknowledge  the  wisdom  of  what 
follows.  It  displays  an  intimate  knowledge  both  of  th° 
constitution  and  history  of  man,  and  there  is  much  in 
it  suited  to  our  present  need :  — 

"  /  do  not  hesitate  to  express  my  conviction,  that  the 
spirit  of  the  critical  philosophy,  as  seen  by  its  fruits  in 
all  the  ramifications  of  art,  literature,  and  morality,  is 
as  much  more  dangerous  than  the  spirit  of  mechanical 
philosophy,  as  it  is  fairer  in  appearance,  and  more  capa- 
ble of  alliance  with  our  natural  feelings  of  enthusiasm 
and  delight.  Its  dangerous  tendency  is  this,  that  it  per- 
verts those  very  minds,  whose  office  it  was  to  resist  the 
perverse  impulses  of  society,  and  to  proclaim  truth  under 
the  dominion  of  falsehood.  However  precipitate  may 
be  at  any  time  the  current  of  public  opinion,  bearing 
along  the  mass  of  men  to  the  grosser  agitations  of  life, 
and  to  such  schemes  of  belief  as  make  these  the  promi- 
nent object,  there  will  always  be  in  reserve  a  force  of 
antagonist  opinion,  strengthened  by  opposition,  and  at- 
testing the  sanctity  of  those  higher  principles,  which  are 
despised  or  forgotten  by  the  majority.  These  men  are 
secured  by  natural  temperament  and  peculiar  circum- 
stances from  participating  in  the  common  delusion  ;  but 
if  some  other  and  deeper  fallacy  be  invented ;  if  some 
more  subtle  beast  of  the  field  should  speak  to  them  in 
wicked  flattery ;  if  a  digest  of  intellectual  aphorisms  can 
be  substituted  in  their  minds  for  a  code  of  living  truths, 


282  REMAINS   OF 

and  the  lovely  semblances  of  beauty,  truth,  affection,  can 
be  made  first  to  obscure  the  presence,  and  then  to  con- 
ceal the  loss,  of  that  religious  humility,  without  which, 
as  their  central  life,  all  these  are  but  dreadful  shadows ; 
if  so  fatal  a  stratagem  can  be  successfully  practised,  I 
see  not  what  hope  remains  for  a  people  against  whom 
the  gates  of  hell  have  so  prevailed." 

"  But  the  number  of  pure  artists  is  small :  few  souls 
are  so  finely  tempered  as  to  preserve  the  delicacy  of 
meditative  feeling,  untainted  by  the  allurements  of  acci- 
dental suggestion.  The  voice  of  the  critical  conscience 
is  still  and  small,  like  that  of  the  moral :  it  cannot  en- 
tirely be  stifled  where  it  has  been  heard,  but  it  may  be 
disobeyed.  Temptations  are  never  wanting:  some  im- 
mediate and  temporary  effect  can  be  produced  at  less 
expense  of  inward  exertion  than  the  high  and  more 
ideal  effect  which  art  demands :  it  is  much  easier  to 
pander  to  the  ordinary  and  often  recurring  wish  for  ex- 
citement, than  to  promote  the  rare  and  difficult  intuition 
of  beauty.  To  raise  the  many  to  his  own  real  point  of 
view,  the  artist  must  employ  his  energies,  and  create  en- 
ergy  in  others :  to  descend  to  their  position  is  less  noble, 
but  practicable  with  ease.  If  I  may  be  allowed  the  met- 
aphor, one  partakes  of  the  nature  of  redemptive  power ; 
the  other  of  that  self-abased  and  degenerate  will,  which 
4  flung  from  his  splendors '  the  fairest  star  in  heaven." 

"  Revelation  is  a  voluntary  approximation  of  the  In- 
finite Being  to  the  ways  and  thoughts  of  finite  humanity. 
But  until  this  step  has  been  taken  by  Almighty  Grace, 
how  should  man  have  a  warrant  for  loving  with  all  his 
heart  and  mind  and  strength  ?  .  .  .  Without  the  gos- 
pel, nature  exhibits  a  want  of  harmony  between  our  in- 
trinsic constitution,  and  the  system  in  which  it  is  placed. 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  283 

But  Christianity  has  made  up  the  difference.  It  is  pos- 
sible and  natural  to  love  the  Father,  who  has  made  us 
his  children  by  the  spirit  of  adoption  :  it  is  possible  and 
natural  to  love  the  Elder  Brother,  who  was,  in  all  things, 
like  as  we  are,  except  sin,  and  can  succor  those  in  temp- 
tation, having  been  himself  tempted.  Tims  the  Christian 
faith  is  the  necessary  complement  of  a  sound  ethical 
system." 

There  is  something  to  us  very  striking  in  the  words 
"  Revelation  is  a  voluntary  approximation  of  the  Infinite 
Being."  This  states  the  case  with  an  accuracy  and  a 
distinctness  not  at  all  common  among  either  the  oppo- 
nents or  the  apologists  of  revealed  religion  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense  of  the  expression.  In  one  sense  God  is  for- 
ever revealing  himself.  His  heavens  are  forever  telling 
his  glory,  and  the  firmament  showing  his  handiwork  ; 
day  unto  day  is  uttering  speech,  and  night  unto  night 
is  showing  knowledge  concerning  him.  But  in  the  word 
of  the  truth  of  the  gospel,  God  draws  near  to  his  crea- 
tures ;  he  bows  his  heavens,  and  comes  down  : 

"  That  glorious  form,  that  light  unsufferable, 
And  that  far-beaming  blaze  of  majesty," 

he  lays  aside.  The  Word  dwelt  with  men.  "  Come 
then,  let  us  reason  together;"  —  "Waiting  to  be  gra- 
cious ;"  —  "  Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door,  and  knock;  if 
any  man  open  to  me,  I  will  come  in  to  him,  and  sup 
with  him,  and  he  with  me."  It  is  the  father  seeing  hia 
son  while  yet  a  great  way  off,  and  having  compassion, 
and  running  to  him  and  falling  on  his  neck  and  kissing 
him  ;  for  "  it  was  meet  for  us  to  rejoice,  for  this  my  son 
was  dead  and  is  alive  again,  he  was  lost  and  is  found." 
Let  no  man  confound  the  voice  of  God  in  his  Works 
with  the  voice  of  God  in  his  Word ;  they  are  utterances 


284  REMAINS   OF 

of  the  same  infinite  heart  and  will ;  they  are  in  absolute 
harmony ;  together  they  make  up  "  that  undisturbed  song 
of  pure  concent ;  "  one  "  perfect  diapason  ; "  but  they  are 
distinct ;  they  are  meant  to  be  so.  A  poor  traveller, 
"  weary  and  waysore,"  is  stumbling  in  unknown  places 
through  the  darkness  of  a  night  of  fear,  with  no  light 
near  him,  the  everlasting  stars  twinkling  far  off  in  their 
depths,  and  yet  unrisen  sun,  or  the  waning  moon,  sending 
up  their  pale  beams  into  the  upper  heavens,  but  all  this 
is  distant,  and  bewildering  for  his  feet,  doubtless  better 
much  than  outer  darkness,  beautiful  and  full  of  God,  if 
he  could  have  the  heart  to  look  up,  and  the  eyes  to  make 
use  of  its  vague  light;  but  he  is  miserable,  and  afraid, 
his  next  step  is  what  he  is  thinking  of;  a  lamp  secured 
against  all  winds  of  doctrine  is  put  into  his  hands,  it  may, 
in  some  respects,  widen  the  circle  of  darkness,  but  it  will 
cheer  his  feet,  it  will  tell  them  what  to  do  next.  What 
a  silly  fool  he  would  be  to  throw  away  that  lantern,  or 
draw  down  the  shutters,  and  make  it  dark  to  him,  while 
it  sits  "  i'  the  centre  and  enjoys  bright  day,"  and  all  upon 
the  philosophical  ground  that  its  light  was  of  the  same 
kind  as  the  stars',  and  that  it  was  beneath  the  dignity  of 
human  nature  to  do  anything  but  struggle  on  and  be  lost 
in  the  attempt  to  get  through  the  wilderness  and  the  night 
by  the  guidance  of  those  "  natural "  lights,  which,  though 
they  are  from  heaven,  have  so  often  led  the  wanderer 
astray.  The  dignity  of  human  nature  indeed  !  Let  him 
keep  his  lantern  till  the  glad  sun  is  up,  with  healing  un- 
der his  wings.  Let  him  take  good  heed  to  the  "  sure " 
Adyov  while  in  this  avxjuqpto  tottw  —  this  dark,  damp,  un- 
wholesome place,  "  till  the  day  dawn  and  t^ucr^opos  —  the 
day-star  —  arise."  Nature  and  the  Bible,  the  Works  and 
the  Word  of  God,  are  two  distinct  things.     In  the  mind 


ARTHUR    H.   HALLAM.  285 

of  their  Supreme  Author  they  dwell  in  perfect  peace,  in 
that  unspeakable  unity  which  is  of  his  essence ;  and  to  us 
his  children,  every  day  their  harmony,  their  mutual  rela- 
tions, are  discovering  themselves ;  but  let  us  beware  of 
saying  all  nature  is  a  revelation  as  the  Bible  is,  and  all 
the  Bible  is  natural  as  nature  is :  there  is  a  perilous  jug- 
gle here. 

The  following  passage  develops  Arthur  Hallam's  views 
on  religious  feeling ;  this  was  the  master-idea  of  his  mind, 
and  it  would  not  be  easy  to  overrate  its  importance. 
"  My  son,  give  me  thine  heart ;  "  —  "  Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God ; "  — "  The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart, 
There  is  no  God."  He  expresses  the  same  general  idea 
in  these  words,  remarkable  in  themselves,  still  more  so 
as  being  the  thought  of  one  so  young.  "  The  work  of 
intellect  is  posterior  to  the  work  of  feeling.  The  latter 
lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  man;  it  is  his  proper  self — 
the  peculiar  thing  that  characterizes  him  as  an  individual. 
No  two  men  are  alike  in  feeling ;  but  conceptions  of  the 
understanding,  when  distinct,  are  precisely  similar  in 
all  —  the  ascertained  relations  of  truths  are  the  common 
property  of  the  race." 

Tennyson,  we  have  no  doubt,  had  this  thought  of  his 
friend  in  his  mind,  in  the  following  lines ;  it  is  an  answei 
to  the  question,  Can  man  by  searching  find  out  God  ?  — 

"  I  found  Him  not  in  world  or  sun, 
Or  eagle's  wing,  or  insect's  eye; 
Nor  thro'  the  questions  men  may  try, 
The  petty  cobwebs  we  have  spun : 

"  If  e'er  when  faith  had  fallen  asleep, 
I  heard  a  voice  '  believe  no  more,' 
And  heard  an  ever-breaking  shore 
That  tumbled  in  the  godless  deep ; 


286  REMAINS  OF 

"A  warmth  within  the  breast  would  melt 
The  freezing  reason's  colder  part,  . 
And  like  a  man  in  wrath,  the  heart 
Stood  up  and  answered,  '/  havefelW 

"  No,  like  a  child  in  doubt  and  fear: 

But  that  blind  clamor  made  me  wise; 
Then  was  I  as  a  child  that  cries, 
But,  crying,  knows  his  father  near; 

"And  what  I  seem  beheld  again 

What  is,  and  no  man  understands : 
And  out  of  darkness  came  the  hands 
That  reach  thro'  nature,  moulding  men." 

This  is  a  subject  of  the  deepest  personal  as  well  as 
speculative  interest.  In  the  works  of  Augustin,  of  Bax- 
ter, Howe,  and  Jonathan  Edwards,  and  of  Alexander 
Knox,  our  readers  will  find  how  large  a  place  the  re- 
ligious affections  held,  in  their  view  of  Divine  truth  as 
well  as  of  human  duty.  The  last-mentioned  writer  ex- 
presses himself  thus  :  —  "  Our  sentimental  faculties  are 
far  stronger  than  our  cogitative  ;  and  the  best  impres- 
sions on  the  latter  will  be  but  the  moonshine  of  the 
mind,  if  they  are  alone.  Feeling  will  be  best  excited 
by  sympathy ;  rather,  it  cannot  be  excited  in  any  other 
way.  Heart  must  act  upon  heart  —  the  idea  of  a  living 
person  being  essential  to  all  intercourse  of  heart.  You 
cannot  by  any  possibility  cordialize  with  a  mere  ens  ra- 
tionis.  '  The  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among 
us,'  otherwise  we  could  not  '  have  beheld  his  glory,'  much 
less  '  received  of  his  fulness.'  "  1 

Our  young  author  thus  goes  on  :  — 

"■  This  opens  upon  us  an  ampler  view  in  which  the 
subject  deserves  to  be  considered,  and  a  relation  still 
1  Remains,  vol.  iii.  p.  105. 


ARTHUR  H.  HALL  AM.  287 

more  direct  and  close  between  the  Christian  religion 
and  the  passion  of  love.  What  is  the  distinguishing 
character  of  Hebrew  literature,  which  separates  it  by 
so  broad  a  line  of  demarcation  from  that  of  every  an- 
cient people  ?  Undoubtedly  the  sentiment  of  erotic  devo- 
tion which  pervades  it.  Their  poets  never  represent  the 
Deity  as  an  impassive  principle,  a  mere  organizing  intel- 
lect, removed  at  infinite  distance  from  human  hopes  and 
fears.  He  is  for  them  a  being  of  like  passions  with 
themselves,1  requiring  heart  for  heart,  and  capable  of 
inspiring  affection  because  capable  of  feeling  and  re~ 
turning  it.  Awful  indeed  are  the  thunders  of  his  utter- 
ance and  the  clouds  that  surround  his  dwelling-place  ; 
very  terrible  is  the  vengeance  he  executes  on  the  na- 
tions that  forget  him :  but  to  his  chosen  people,  and 
especially  to  the  men  '  after  his  own  heart,'  whom  he 
anoints  from  the  midst  of  them,  his  '  still,  small  voice ' 
speaks  in  sympathy  and  loving-kindness.  Every  He- 
brew, while  his  breast  glowed  with  patriotic  enthusiasm 
at  those  promises,  which  he  shared  as  one  of  the  favored 
race,  had  a  yet  deeper  source  of  emotion,  from  which 
gushed  perpetually  the  aspirations  of  prayer  and  thanks- 
giving. He  might  consider  himself  alone  in  the  presence 
of  his  God  ;  the  single  being  to  whom  a  great  revelation 


1  "An  unfortunate  reference  (Acts  xiv.  15),  for  the  apostle's  decla- 
ration is,  that  he  and  his  brethren  were  of  '  like  passions  '  (James  v. 
17); — liable  to  the  same  imperfections  and  mutations  of  thought  and 
feeling  as  other  men,  and  as  the  Lystrans  supposed  their  gods  to  be ; 
while  the  God  proclaimed  by  him  to  them  is  not  so.  And  thai  God  is 
the  God  of  the  Jews  as  well  as  of  the  Christians;  for  there  is  but  one 
God.  Hallam's  thought  is  an  important  and  just  one,  but  not  devel- 
oped with  his  usual  nice  accuracy." 

For  this  note,  as  for  much  else,  I  am  indebted  to  my  father,  whose 
powers  of  compressed  thought  I  wish  I  had  inherited. 


288  REMAINS  OF 

had  been  made,  and  over  whose  head  an  'exceeding 
weight  of  glory '  was  suspended.  For  him  the  rocks 
of  Horeb  had  trembled,  and  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea 
were  parted  in  their  course.  The  word  given  on  Sinai 
with  such  solemn  pomp  of  ministration  was  given  to  his 
own  individual  soul,  and  brought  him  into  immediate 
communion  with  his  Creator.  That  awful  Being  could 
never  be  put  away  from  him.  He  was  about  his  path, 
and  about  his  bed,  and  knew  all  his  thoughts  long  before. 
Yet  this  tremendous,  enclosing  presence  was  a  presence  of 
love.  It  was  a  manifold,  everlasting  manifestation  of  one 
deep  feeling  —  a  desire  for  human  affection.1  Such  a  be- 
lief, while  it  enlisted  even  pride  and  self-interest  on  the 
side  of  piety,  had  a  direct  tendency  to  excite  the  best 
passions  of  our  nature.  Love  is  not  long  asked  in  vain 
from  generous  dispositions.  A  Being,  never  absent,  but 
standing  beside  the  life  of  each  man  with  ever  watchful 
tenderness,  and  recognized,  though  invisible,  in  every 
blessing  that  befell  them  from  youth  to  age,  became 
naturally  the  object  of  their  warmest  affections.  Their 
belief  in  him  could  not  exist  without  producing,  as  a 
necessary  effect,  that  profound  impression  of  passionate 
individual  attachment  which  in  the  Hebrew  authors  al- 
ways mingles  with  and  vivifies  their  faith  in  the  Invisi- 
ble. All  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  are  breathed 
upon  by  this  breath  of  life.  Especially  is  it  to  be  found 
in  that  beautiful  collection,  entitled  the  Psalms  of  David, 
which  remains,  after  some  thousand  years,  perhaps  the 
most  perfect  form  in  which  the  religious  sentiment  of 
man  has  been  embodied. 

1  Abraham  "was  called  the  friend  of  God;"  "with  him  (Moses) 
will  I  (Jehovah)  speak  mouth  to  mouth,  even  apparently,"  —  "as  a 
man  to  his  friend;  "  David  was  "  a  man  after  mine  own  heart." 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  289 

"  But  what  is  true  of  Judaism  is  yet  more  true  of 
Christianity  :  '  matre  pulchrd  filia  pulchrior.'      In  addi- 
tion to  all  the  characters  of  Hebrew  Monotheism,  there 
exists  in  the  doctrine  of  the   Cross  a  peculiar  and  in- 
exhaustible treasure  for  the  affectionate  feelings.      The 
idea  of  the  (deavOparn-os,  the  God  whose  goings  forth  have 
been  from  everlasting,  yet  visible  to  men  for  their  re- 
demption as  an  earthly,  temporal  creature,  living,  acting, 
and  suffering  among  themselves,  then  (which  is  yet  more 
important)  transferring  to  the  unseen  place  of  his  spirit- 
ual agency  the  same  humanity  he  wore  on  earth,  so  that 
the  lapse  of  generations  can  in  no  way  affect  the  concep- 
tion of  his  identity ;   this  is  the  most  powerful  thought 
that  ever  addressed  itself  to  a  human  imagination.     It  is 
the  irov  cttw,  which  alone  was  wanted  to  move  the  world. 
Here  was  solved  at  once  the  great  problem  which  so  long 
had  distressed  the  teachers  of  mankind,  how  to  make  vir- 
tue the  object  of  passion,  and  to  secure  at  once  the  warm- 
est enthusiasm  in  the  heart  with  the  clearest  perception 
of  right  and  wrong  in  the  understanding.     The  character 
of  tne  blessed  Founder  of  our  faith  became  an  abstract  of 
morality  to  determine  the  judgment,  while  at  the  same 
time  it  remained  personal,  and  liable  to  love.    The  written 
word  and   established  church  prevented  a  degeneration 
into  ungoverned  mysticism,  but  the  predominant  principle 
of  vital  religion  always  remained  that  of  self-sacrifice  to 
the   Saviour.     Not  only  the   higher   divisions   of  moral 
duties,  but  the  simple,  primary  impulses  of  benevolence, 
were  suoordinated  to  this  new  absorbing  passion.     The 
world  was  loved  '  in  Christ  alone.'     The  brethren  were 
members  of  his  mystical  body.     All  the  other  bonds  that 
had  fastened  down  the  spirit  of  the  universe  to  our  nar- 
row round  of  earth  were  as  nothing  in  comparison  to  this 
19 


290  REMAINS   OF 

golden  chain  of  suffering  and  self-sacrifice,  which  at  once 
riveted  the  heart  of  man  to  one  who,  like  himself,  was 
acquainted  with  grief.  Pain  is  the  deepest  thing  we  have 
in  our  nature,  and  union  through  pain  has  always  seemed 
more  real  and  more  holy  than  any  other."  1 

There  is  a  sad  pleasure,  —  non  ingrata  amaritudo,  ami 
a  sort  of  meditative  tenderness,  in  contemplating  the  little 
life  of  this  "  dear  youth,"  and  in  letting  the  mind  rest 
upon  these  his  earnest  thoughts ;  to  watch  his  keen  and 
fearless,  but  child-like  spirit,  moving  itself  aright  —  going 
straight  onward  "  along  the  lines  of  limitless  desires  "  — 
throwing  himself  into  the  very  deepest  of  the  ways  of 
God,  and  striking  out  as  a  strong  swimmer  striketh  out 
his  hands  to  swim ;  to  see  him  "  mewing  his  mighty 
youth,  and  kindling  his  undazzled  eye  at  the  fountain 
itself  of  heavenly  radiance  :  " 

"  Light  intellectual,  and  full  of  love, 
Love  of  true  beauty,  therefore  full  of  joy, 
Joy,  every  other  sweetness  far  above." 

It  is  good  for  every  one  to  look  upon  such  a  sight,  and  as 

1  This  is  the  passage  referred  to  in  Henry  Taylor's  delightful  Notes 
from  Life  ("  Essay  on  Wisdom  "):  — 

"Fear,  indeed,  is  the  mother  of  foresight:  spiritual  fear,  of  a  fore- 
sight that  reaches  beyond  the  grave;  temporal  fear,  of  a  foresight  that 
falls  short;  but  without  fear  there  is  neither  the  one  foresight  nor  the 
other;  and  as  pain  has  been  truly  said  to  be  '  the  deepest  thing  in  our 
nature,'  so  is  it  fear  that  will  bring  the  depths  of  our  nature  within  our 
knowledge.  A  great  capacity  of  suffering  belongs  to  genius;  and  it 
has  been  observed  that  an  alternation  of  joyfulness  and  dejection  \s 
quite  as  characteristic  of  the  man  of  genius  as  intensity  in  either  kind." 
In  his  Notes  from  Books,  p.  216,  he  recurs  to  it :  —  "  '  Pain,'  says  a 
writer  whose  early  death  will  not  prevent  his  being  long  remembered, 
pain  is  the  deepest  thing  that  we  have  in  our  nature,  and  union 
through  pain  has  always  seemed  more  real  and  more  holy  than  any 
other.' " 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  291 

we  look,  to  love.  "We  should  all  be  the  better  for  it ;  and 
should  desire  to  be  thankful  for,  and  to  use  aright  a  gift 
so  good  and  perfect,  coming  down  as  it  does  from  above, 
from  the  Father  of  lights,  in  whom  alone  there  is  no 
variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning. 

Thus  it  is,  that  to  each  one  of  us  the  death  of  Arthur 
Hallam  —  his  thoughts  and  affections  —  his  views  of  God, 
of  our  relations  to  Him,  of  duty,  of  the  meaning  and 
worth  of  this  world,  and  the  next,  —  where  he  now  is, 
have  an  individual  significance.  He  is  bound  up  in  our 
bundle  of  life  ;  we  must  be  the  better  or  the  worse  of 
having  known  what  manner  of  man  he  was ;  and  in  a 
sense  less  peculiar,  but  not  less  true,  each  of  us  may  say, 

"  The  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead 


Will  never  come  back  to  me." 


"  0  for  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 


And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still !  " 

"  God  gives  us  love !     Something  to  love 
He  lends  us;  but  when  love  is  grown 
To  ripeness,  that  on  which  it  throve 
Falls  off,  and  love  is  left  alone: 

"  This  is  the  curse  of  time.    Alas ! 
In  grief  we  are  not  all  unlearned ; 
Once,  through  our  own  doors  Death  did  pass; 
One  went,  who  never  hath  returned. 

"  This  star 
Rose  with  us,  through  a  little  arc 
Of  heaven,  nor  having  wandered  far, 
Shot  on  the  sudden  into  dark. 

"  Sleep  sweetly,  tender  heart,  in  peace ; 
Sleep,  holy  spirit,  blessed  soul, 
While  the  stars  burn,  the  moons  increase, 
And  the  great  ages  onward  roll 


292  REMAINS  OF 

"  Sleep  till  the  end,  true  soul  and  sweet, 
Nothing  comes  to  thee  new  or  strange, 
Sleep,  full  of  rest  from  head  to  feet; 
Lie  still,  dry  dust,  secure  of  change." 

Vattene  in  pace,  alma  beata  e  bella.  —  Go  in  peace, 
soul  beautiful  and  blessed. 

"  0  man  greatly  beloved,  go  thou  thy  way  till  the  end, 
for  thou  shalt  rest,  and  stand  in  thy  lot  at  the  end  of  the 
days."  —  Daniel. 


"  Lord,  I  have  viewed  this  world  over,  in  which  thou 
hast  set  me  ;  I  have  tried  how  this  and  that  thing  will  fit 
my  spirit,  and  the  design  of  my  creation,  and  can  find 
nothing  on  which  to  rest,  for  nothing  here  doth  itself  rest, 
but  such  things  as  please  me  for  a  while,  in  some  degree, 
vanish  and  flee  as  shadows  from  before  me.  Lo !  I  come 
to  Thee  —  the  Eternal  Being  —  the  Spring  of  Life  — ■ 
the  Centre  of  rest  —  the  Stay  of  the  Creation  —  the 
Fulness  of  all  things.  I  join  myself  to  Thee  ;  with  Thee 
I  will  lead  my  life,  and  spend  my  days,  with  whom  I 
aim  to  dwell  forever,  expecting,  when  my  little  time  is 
over,  to  be  taken  up  ere  long  into  thy  eternity."  —  John 
Howe,  The  Vanity  of  Man  as  Mortal. 

Necesse  est  tanquam  immaturam  mortem  ejus  defleam : 
si  tamen  fas  est  aut  flere,  aut  omnino  mortem  vocare,  qua 
tanti  juvenis  mortalitas  magis  finita  quam  vita  est.  Vivit 
enim,  vivetque  semper,  atque  etiam  lat.ius  in  memoria 
hominum  et  sermone  versabitur,  postquam  ab  oculis  re- 
cessit. 

The  above  notice  was  published  in  1851.  On  sending 
to  Mr.  Hallam  a  copy  of  the  Review  in  which  it  ap- 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  293 

peared,  I  expressed  my  hope  that  he  would  not  be  dis- 
pleased by  what  I  had  done.  I  received  the  following 
kind  and  beautiful  reply  :  — 

"  Wilton  Crescent,  Feb.  1, 1851. 

"Dear  Sir,  —  It  would  be  ungrateful  in  me  to  feel  any  displeasure 
at  so  slowing  an  eulogy  on  my  dear  eldest  son  Arthur,  though  after 
such  a  length  of  time,  so  unusual,  as  you  have  written  in  the  North 
British  Review.  I  thank  you,  on  the  contrary,  for  the  strong  language 
of  admiration  you  have  employed,  though  it  may  expose  me  to  appli- 
cations for  copies  of  the  Remains,  which  I  have  it  not  in  my  power  to 
comply  with.  I  was  very  desirous  to  have  lent  you  a  copy,  at  your 
request,  but  you  have  succeeded  elsewhere. 

"  You  are  probably  aware  that  I  was  prevented  from  doing  this  by 
a  great  calamity,  very  similar  in  its  circumstances  to  that  I  had  to  de- 
plore in  1833  —  the  loss  of  another  son,  equal  in  virtues,  hardly  inferior 
in  abilities,  to  him  whom  you  have  commemorated.  This  has  been  an 
unspeakable  affliction  to  me,  and  at  my  advanced  age,  seventy-three 
vears,  I  can  have  no  resource  but  the  hope,  in  God's  mercy,  of  a 
reunion  with  them  both.  The  resemblance  in  their  characters  was 
striking,  and  I  had  often  reflected  how  wonderfully  my  first  loss  had 
been  repaired  by  the  substitution,  as  it  might  be  called,  of  one  so 
closely  representing  his  brother.  I  send  you  a  brief  Memoir,  drawn 
up  by  two  friends,  with  very  little  alteration  of  my  own.  —  I  am,  Dear 
Sir,  faithfully  yours,  Henry  Hallam. 

"  Dr.  Brown, 
"  Edinburgh." 


The  following  extracts,  from  the  Memoir  of  Henry 
Fitzmaurice  Hallam  mentioned  above,  which  has  been 
appended  to  a  reprint  of  his  brother's  Remains  (for  pri- 
vate circulation),  form  a  fitting  close  to  this  memorial  of 
these  two  brothers,  who  were  "  lovely  and  pleasant  in 
their  lives,"  and  are  now  by  their  deaths  not  divided  :  — 

"  But  few  months  have  elapsed  since  the  pages  of  In 
Memoriam  recalled  to  the  minds  of  many,  and  impressed 
on  the  hearts  of  all  who  perused  them,  the  melancholy 


294  REMAINS   OF 

circumstances  attending  the  sudden  and  early  death  of 
Arthur  Henry  Hallam,  the  eldest  son  of  Henry  Hallam, 
Esq.  Not  many  weeks  ago  the  public  journals  contained 
a  short  paragraph  announcing  the  decease,  under  circum- 
stances equally  distressing,  and  in  some  points  remarkably 
similar,  of  Henry  Fitzmaurice,  Mr.  Hallam's  younger 
and  only  remaining  son.  No  one  of  the  very  many  who 
appreciate  the  sterling  value  of  Mr.  Hallam's  literary 
labors,  and  who  feel  a  consequent  interest  in  the  charac- 
ter of  those  who  would  have  sustained  the  eminence  of 
an  honorable  name  ;  no  one  who  was  affected  by  the 
striking  and  tragic  fatality  of  two  such  successive  be- 
reavements, will  deem  an  apology  needed  for  this  short 
and  imperfect  Memoir. 

"  Henry  Fitzmaurice  Hallam,  the  younger  son  of 
Henry  Hallam,  Esq.,  was  born  on  the  31st  of  August 
1824 ;  he  took  his  second  name  from  his  godfather,  the 
Marquis  of  Lansdowne.  ...  A  habit  of  reserve,  which 
characterized  him  at  all  periods  of  life,  but  which  was 
compensated  in  the  eyes  of  even  his  first  companions  by 
a  singular  sweetness  of  temper,  was  produced  and  fos- 
tered by  the  serious  thoughtfulness  ensuing  upon  early 
familiarity  with  domestic  sorrow. 

" *  He  was  gentle,'  writes  one  of  his  earliest  and 
closest  school-friends,  '  retiring,  thoughtful  to  pensive- 
ness,  affectionate,  without  envy  or  jealousy,  almost  with 
out  emulation,  impressible,  but  not  wanting  in  moral 
firmness.  No  one  was  ever  more  formed  for  friendship. 
In  all  his  words  and  acts  he  was  simple,  straightforward, 
true.  He  was  very  religious.  Religion  had  a  real  effect 
upon  his  character,  and  made  him  tranquil  about  great 
things,  though  he  was  so  nervous  about  little  things.' 

"  He  was  called  to  the  bar  in  Trinity  Term,  1850,  and 


ARTHUR  H.  HALLAM.  295 

became  a  member  of  the  Midland  Circuit  in  the  summer. 
Immediately  afterwards  he  joined  his  family  in  a  tour  on 
the  Continent.  They  had  spent  the  early  part  of  the 
autumn  at  Rome,  and  were  returning  northwards,  when 
he  was  attacked  by  a  sudden  and  severe  illness,  affecting 
the  vital  powers,  and  accompanied  by  enfeebled  circula- 
tion and  general  prostration  of  strength.  He  was  able, 
with  difficulty,  to  reach  Siena,  where  he  sank  rapidly 
through  exhaustion,  and  expired  on  Friday,  October  25. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  he  did  not  experience  any  great  or 
active  suffering.  He  was  conscious  nearly  to  the  last, 
and  met  his  early  death  (of  which  his  presentiments,  for 
several  years,  had  been  frequent  and  very  singular)  with 
calmness  and  fortitude.  There  is  reason  to  apprehend, 
from  medical  examination,  that  his  life  would  not  have 
been  of  very  long  duration,  even  had  this  unhappy  illness 
not  occurred.  But  for  some  years  past  his  health  had 
been  apparently  much  improved ;  and,  secured  as  it 
seemed  to  be  by  his  unintermitted  temperance,  and  by  a 
carefulness  in  regimen  which  his  early  feebleness  of  con- 
stitution had  rendered  habitual,  those  to  whom  he  was 
nearest  and  dearest  had,  in  great  measure,  ceased  to 
regard  him  with  anxiety.  His  remains  were  brought  to 
England,  and  he  was  interred,  on  December  23d,  in 
Clevedon  Church,  Somersetshire,  by  the  side  of  his 
brother,  his  sister,  and  his  mother. 

"  For  continuous  and  sustained  thought  he  had  an 
extraordinary  capacity,  the  bias  of  his  mind  being  de- 
cidedly towards  analytical  processes  ;  a  characteristic 
which  was  illustrated  at  Cambridge  by  his  uniform  par- 
tiality for  analysis,  and  comparative  distaste  for  the 
geometrical  method,  in  his  mathematical  studies.  His 
early  proneness  to  dwell  upon  the  more  recondite  depart- 


296  REMAINS  OF  ARTHUR  H.   HALLAM. 

ments  of  each  science  and  branch  of  inquiry  has  been 
alluded  to  above.  It  is  not  to  be  inferred  that,  as  a  con- 
sequence of  this  tendency,  he  blinded  himself,  at  any 
period  of  his  life,  to  the  necessity  and  the  duty  of  practi- 
cal exertion.  He  was  always  eager  to  act  as  well  as 
speculate  ;  and,  in  this  respect,  his  character  preserved 
an  unbroken  consistency  and  harmony  from  the  epoch 
when,  on  commencing  his  residence  at  Cambridge,  he 
voluntarily  became  a  teacher  in  a  parish  Sunday-school, 
for  the  sake  of  applying  his  theories  of  religious  educa- 
tion, to  the  time  when,  on  the  point  of  setting  forth  on  his 
last  fatal  journey,  he  framed  a  plan  of  obtaining  access,  in 
the  ensuing  winter,  to  a  large  commercial  establishment, 
in  the  view  of  familiarizing  himself  with  the  actual  course 
and  minute  detail  of  mercantile  transactions. 

"  Insensibly  and  unconsciously  he  had  made  himself  a 
large  number  of  friends  in  the  last  few  years  of  his  life : 
the  painful  impression  created  by  his  death  in  the  circle 
in  which  he  habitually  moved,  and  even  beyond  it,  was 
exceedingly  remarkable,  both  for  its  depth  and  extent 
For  those  united  with  him  in  a  companionship  more  than 
ordinarily  close,  his  friendship  had  taken  such  a  charac- 
ter as  to  have  almost  become  a  necessity  of  existence. 
But  it  was  upon  his  family  that  he  lavished  all  the  wealth 
of  his  disposition  —  affection  without  stint,  gentleness 
never  once  at  fault,  considerateness  reaching  to  self- 
sacrifice  :  — 

"  Di  clo  si  biasmi  il  debolo  intelletto 
E'  l'parlar  nostro,  che  non  ha  valore 
Di  ritrar  tutto  do  che  dice  amore. 

H.  S.  M. 

F.  L." 


EDUCATION   THROUGH   THE  SENSES. 


EDUCATION  THROUGH  THE   SENSES. 

Ylpwrov  \opTut',  eira  ora^w,  cira  TrXrjp-q  (tltov  iv  t<3  ora^fu'u 

[NE  of  the  chief  sins  of  our  time  is  hurry : 
it  is  helter-skelter,  and  devil  take  the  hind- 
most. Off  we  go  all  too  swift  at  starting, 
and  we  neither  run  so  fast  nor  so  far  as  we 
would  have  done,  had  we  taken  it  cannily  at  first. 
This  is  true  of  a  boy  as  well  as  of  a  blood  colt.  Not 
only  are  boys  and  colts  made  to  do  the  work  and  the 
running  of  full-grown  men  and  horses,  but  they  are 
hurried  out  of  themselves  and  their  now,  and  pushed 
into  the  middle  of  next  week  where  nobody  is  wanting 
them,  and  beyond  which  they  frequently  never  get. 

The  main  duty  of  those  who  care  for  the  young  is  to 
secure  their  wholesome,  their  entire  growth,  for  health 
is  just  the  development  of  the  whole  nature  in  its  due 
sequences  and  proportions  :  first  the  blade  —  then  the 
ear  —  then,  and  not  till  then,  the  full  corn  in  the  ear ; 
and  thus,  as  Dr.  Temple  wisely  says,  "  not  to  forget 
wisdom  in  teaching  knowledge."  If  the  blade  be  forced, 
and  usurp  the  capital  it  inherits  ;  if  it  be  robbed  by  you 
its  guardian  of  its  birthright,  or  squandered  like  a  spend- 
thrift, then  there  is  not  any  ear,  much  less  any  corn  ;  if 
the  blade  be  blasted  or  dwarfed  in  our  haste  and  greed 
for  the  full  shock  and  its  price,  we  spoil  all  three.  It  is 
not  easy  to  keep  this  always  before  one's  mind,  that  the 


300  EDUCATION  THROUGH  THE  SENSES. 

young  "idea"  is  in  a  young  body,  and  that  healthy 
growth  and  harmless  passing  of  the  time  are  more  to 
be  cared  for  than  what  is  vainly  called  accomplishment. 
We  are  preparing  him  to  run  his  race,  and  accomplish  that 
which  is  one  of  his  chief  ends ;  but  we  are  too  apt  to 
start  him  off  at  his  full  speed,  and  he  either  bolts  or 
breaks  down  —  the  worst  thing  for  him  generally  being 
to  win.  In  this  way  a  child  or  boy  should  be  regarded 
much  more  as  a  mean  than  as  an  end,  and  his  cultivation 
should  have  reference  to  this ;  his  mind,  as  old  Montaigne 
said,  should  be  forged,  as  well  as  —  indeed,  I  would  say, 
rather  than  —  furnished,  fed  rather  than  filled,  —  two  not 
always  coincident  conditions.  Now  exercise  —  the  joy 
of  interest,  of  origination,  of  activity,  of  excitement  — 
the  play  of  the  faculties,  —  this  is  the  true  life  of  a  boy, 
not  the  accumulation  of  mere  words.  Words  —  the  coin 
of  thought  —  unless  as  the  means  of  buying  something 
else,  are  just  as  useless  as  other  coin  when  it  is  hoarded ; 
and  it  is  as  silly,  and  in  the  true  sense  as  much  the  part 
and  lot  of  a  miser,  to  amass  words  for  their  own  sakes, 
as  to  keep  all  your  guineas  in  a  stocking  and  never 
spend  them,  but  be  satisfied  with  every  now  and  then 
looking  greedily  at  them  and  making  them  chink.  There- 
fore it  is  that  I  dislike  —  as  indeed  who  doesn't  ?  —  the 
cramming  system.  The  great  thing  with  knowledge  and 
the  young  is  to  secure  that  it  shall  be  their  own  —  that 
it  loe  not  merely  external  to  their  inner  and  real  self, 
but  shall  go  in  succum  et  sanguinem  ;  and  therefore  it  is, 
that  the  self-teaching  that  a  baby  and  a  child  give  them- 
selves remains  with  them  forever  —  it  is  of  their  essence, 
whereas  what  is  given  them  ah  extra,  especially  if  it  be 
received  mechanically,  without  relish,  and  without  any 
energizing  of  the  entire  nature,  remains  pitifully  useless 


EDUCATION  THROUGH   THE  SENSES.  301 

and  wersh.  Try,  therefore,  always  to  get  the  resident 
teacher  inside  the  skin,  and  who  is  forever  giving  his 
lessons,  to  help  you  and  be  on  your  side. 

Now  in  children,  as  we  all  know,  he  works  chiefly 
through  the  senses.  The  quantity  of  accurate  observa- 
tion —  of  induction,  and  of  deduction  too  (both  of  a 
much  better  quality  than  most  of  Mr.  Buckle's)  ;  of 
reasoning  from  the  known  to  the  unknown;  of  inferring; 
the  nicety  of  appreciation  of  the  like  and  the  unlike,  the 
common  and  the  rare,  the  odd  and  the  even ;  the  skill  of 
the  rough  and  the  smooth  —  of  form,  of  appearance,  of 
texture,  of  weight,  of  all  the  minute  and  deep  philoso- 
phies of  the  touch  and  of  the  other  senses,  —  the  amount 
of  this  sort  of  objective  knowledge  which  every  child  of 
eight  years  has  acquired  —  especially  if  he  can  play  in 
the  lap  of  nature  and  out  of  doors  —  and  acquired  for 
life,  is,  if  we  could  only  think  of  it,  marvellous  beyond 
any  of  our  mightiest  marches  of  intellect.  Now,  could 
we  only  get  the  knowledge  of  the  school  to  go  as  sweetly 
and  deeply  and  clearly  into  the  vitals  of  the  mind  as  this 
self-teaching  has  done,  and  this  is  the  paradisiac  way  of 
it,  we  should  make  the  young  mind  grow  as  well  as 
learn,  and  be  in  understanding  a  man  as  well  as  in  sim- 
plicity a  child ;  we  should  get  rid  of  much  of  that  dreary, 
sheer  endurance  of  their  school-hours  —  that  stolid  lend- 
ing of  ears  that  do  not  hear  —  that  objectless  looking 
without  ever  once  seeing,  and  straining  their  minds  with- 
out an  aim  ;  alternating,  it  may  be,  with  some  feats  of 
dexterity  and  effort,  like  a  man  trying  to  lift  himself  in 
his  own  arms,  or  take  his  head  in  his  teeth,  exploits  as 
dangerous,  as  ungraceful,  and  as  useless,  except  to  glo- 
rify the  showman  and  bring  wages  in,  as  the  feats  of  an 
acrobat. 


302  EDUCATION  THROUGH  THE   SENSES. 

But  you  will  ask,  how  is  all  this  to  be  avoided  if 
everybody  must  know  how  far  the  sun  is  from  Georgium 
Sidus,  and  how  much  of  phosphorus  is  in  our  bones,  and 
of  ptyalin  and  flint  in  human  spittle  —  besides  some 
10,000  times  10,000  other  things  which  we  must  be  told 
and  try  to  remember,  and  which  we  cannot  prove  not  to 
be  true,  but  which  I  decline  to  say  we  know. 

But  is  it  necessary  that  everybody  should  know  every 
thing  ?  Is  it  not  much  more  to  the  purpose  for  every 
man,  when  his  turn  comes,  to  be  able  to  do  something ; 
and  I  say,  that  other  things  being  equal,  a  boy  who  goes 
bird-nesting,  and  makes  a  collection  of  eggs,  and  knows 
all  their  colors  and  spots,  going  through  the  excitements 
and  glories  of  getting  them,  and  observing  everything 
with  a  keenness,  an  intensity,  an  exactness,  and  a  per- 
manency, which  only  youth  and  a  quick  pulse,  and  fresh 
blood  and  spirits  combined,  can  achieve,  —  a  boy  who 
teaches  himself~natural  history  in  this  way,  is  not  only 
a  healthier  and  happier  boy,  but  is  abler  in  mind  and 
body  for  entering  upon  the  great  game  of  life,  than  the 
pale,  nervous,  bright-eyed,  feverish,  "  interesting "  boy, 
with  a  big  head  and  a  small  bottom  and  thin  legs,  who 
is  the  "  captain,"  the  miracle  of  the  school ;  dux  for  his 
brief  year  or  two  of  glory,  and,  if  he  live,  booby  for  life. 
I  am,  of  course,  not  going  in  for  a  complete  curriculum 
of  general  ignorance ;  but  I  am  for  calling  the  attention 
of  teachers  to  drawing  out  the  minds,  the  energies,  the 
hearts  of  their  pupils  through  their  senses,  as  well  aa 
pouring  in  through  these  same  apertures  the  general 
knowledge  of  mankind,  the  capital  of  the  race,  into  this 
one  small  being,  who  it  is  to  be  hoped  will  contrive 
to  forget  much  of  the  mere  words  he  has  unhappily 
learned. 


EDUCATION  THROUGH   THE  SENSES.  303 

For  we  may  say  of  our  time  in  all  seriousness,  what 
Sydney  Smith  said  in  the  fulness  of  his  wisdom  and  his 
fun,  of  the  pantologic  master  of  Trinity  —  Science  is  our 
forte  ;  omniscience  is  our  foible.  There  is  the  seed  of 
a  whole  treatise,  a  whole  organon  in  this  joke ;  think 
over  it,  and  let  it  simmer  in  your  mind,  and  you  will  feel 
its  significance  and  its  power.  Now,  what  is  science  so 
called  to  every  999  men  in  1000,  but  something  that  the 
one  man  tells  them  he  has  been  told  by  some  one  else  — 
who  may  be  one  among  say  50,000  —  is  true,  but  of  the 
truth  of  which  these  999  men  (and  probably  even  the 
teaching  thousandth  man)  can  have  no  direct  test,  and, 
accordingly,  for  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  which  they,  by 
a  law  of  their  nature,  which  rejects  what  has  no  savor 
and  is  superfluous,  don't  care  one  fig.  How  much  better, 
how  much  dearer,  and  more  precious  in  a  double  sense, 
because  it  has  been  bought  by  themselves,  —  how  much 
nobler  is  the  knowledge  which  our  little  friend,  young 
Edward  Forbes,  "  that  marvellous  boy,"  for  instance  — ■ 
and  what  an  instance  !  —  is  picking  up,  as  he  looks  into 
everything  he  sees,  and  takes  photographs  upon  his 
retina  —  the  camera  lucida  of  his  mind  —  which  never 
fade,  of  every  midge  that  washes  its  face  as  a  cat  does, 
and  preens  its  wings,  every  lady-bird  that  alights  on  his 
knee,  and  folds  and  unfolds  her  gauzy  pinions  under 
their  spotted  and  glorious  lids.  How  more  real  is  not 
only  this  knowledge,  but  this  little  knowledger  in  his 
entire  nature,  than  the  poor  being  who  can  maunder 
amazingly  the  entire  circle  of  human  science  at  second, 
or  it  may  be,  twentieth  hand ! 

There  are  some  admirable,  though  cursory  remarks  on 
"  Ornithology  as  a  Branch  of  Liberal  Education,"  by  the 
late  Dr.  Adams  of  Banchory,  the  great  Greek  scholar, 


304  EDUCATION  THROUGH  THE  SENSES. 

in  a  pamphlet  bearing  this  title,  which  he  read  as  a  paper 
before  the   last   meeting  of   the  British  Association  in 
Aberdeen.     It  is  not  only  interesting  as  a  piece  of  nat- 
ural history,  and  a  touching  cooperation  of   father  and 
son  in  the  same  field  —  the  one  on  the  banks  of  his  own 
beautiful  Dee  and  among  the  wilds  of  the   Grampians, 
the  other  among  the  Himalayas  and  the  forests  of  Cash- 
mere ;  the  son  having  been  enabled,  by  the  knowledge 
of  his   native   birds    got   under   his    father's  eye,  when 
placed  in  an  unknown  country  to  recognize  his  old  feath- 
ered friends,  and  to  make  new  ones  and  tell  their  story ; 
it  is  also  valuable  as  coming  from  a  man  of  enormous 
scholarship  and  knowledge  —  the  most  learned  physician 
of  his   time  —  who  knew  Aristotle  and   Plato,  and   all 
those  old  fellows,  as  we  know  Maunder  or  Lardner  — 
a  hard-working  country  surgeon,  who  was  ready  to  run 
at  any  one's  call  —  but  who  did  not  despise  the  modern 
enlightenments -of  his  profession,  because  they  were  not 
in  Paulus  Agineta ;  though,  at  the   same  time,  he  did 
not  despise  the  admirable  and  industrious  Paul  because 
he  was  not  up  to  the  last  doctrine  of  the  nucleated  cell, 
or  did  not  read  his  Hippocrates  by  the  blaze  of  Paraffine ; 
a  man  greedy  of  all  knowledge,  and  welcoming  it  from 
all  comers,  but  who,  at  the  end  of  a  long  life  of  toil  and 
thought,  gave  it  as  his  conviction  that  one  of  the  best 
helps  to  true  education,  one  of  the  best  counteractives  to 
the  necessary  mischiefs  of  mere  scientific  teaching  and 
information,  was   to  be   found  in  getting  the  young  to 
teach  themselves  some  one  of  the  natural  sciences,  and 
singling  out  ornithology  as  one  of  the  readiest  and  most 
delightful  for  such  a  life  as  his. 

I  end  these  intentionally  irregular  remarks  by  a  story. 
Some,  years  ago  I  was  in  one  of  the  wildest  recesses  of 


EDUCATION  THROUGH  THE  SENSES.  305 

the  Perthshire  Highlands.  It  was  in  autumn,  and  the 
little  school  supported  mainly  by  the  Chief,  who  dwelt 
all  the  year  round  in  the  midst  of  his  own  people,  was 
to  be  examined  by  the  minister,  whose  native  tongue, 
like  that  of  his  flock,  was  Gaelic,  and  who  was  as  awk- 
ward and  ineffectual,  and  sometimes  as  unconsciously 
indecorous,  in  his  English,  as  a  Cockney  is  in  his  kilt. 
It  was  a  great  occasion :  the  keen-eyed,  firm-limbed, 
brown-cheeked  little  fellows  were  all  in  a  buzz  of  excite- 
ment as  we  came  in,  and  before  the  examination  began 
every  eye  was  looking  at  us  strangers  as  a  dog  looks  at 
his  game,  or  wrhen  seeking  it ;  they  knew  everything  we 
had  on,  everything  that  could  be  known  through  their 
senses.  I  never  felt  myself  so  studied  and  scrutinized 
before.  If  any  one  could  have  examined  them  upon 
what  they  thus  mastered,  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  and 
John  Mill  would  have  come  away  astonished,  and,  I 
trust,  humble.  Well  then,  the  work  of  the  day  began ; 
the  mill  was  set  a-going,  and  what  a  change !  In  an 
instant  their  eyes  were  like  the  windows  of  a  house  with 
the  blinds  down ;  no  one  was  looking  out ;  everything 
blank ;  their  very  features  changed  —  their  jaws  fell, 
their  cheeks  flattened,  they  drooped  and  looked  ill  at 
ease  —  stupid,  drowsy,  sulky  —  and  getting  them  to 
speak,  or  think,  or  in  any  way  to  energize,  was  like 
trying  to  get  any  one  to  come  to  the  window  at  three 
of  a  summer  morning,  when,  if  they  do  come,  they 
are  half  awake,  rubbing  their  eyes  and  growling.  So 
with  my  little  Celts.  They  were  like  an  idle  and  half 
asleep  collie  by  the  fireside,  as  contrasted  with  the  collie 
on  the  hill  and  in  the  joy  of  work  ;  the  form  of  dog  and 
boy  are  there  —  he,  the  self  of  each,  was  elsewhere  (for 
I  differ  from  Professor  Ferrier  in  thinking  that  the  dog 


306  EDUCATION  THROUGH  THE  SENSES. 

has  the  reflex  ego,  and  is  a  very  knowing  being.)  I 
noticed  that  anything  they  really  knew  roused  them 
somewhat ;  what  they  had  merely  to  transmit  or  pass 
along,  as  if  they  were  a  tube  through  which  the  mastei 
blew  the  pea  of  knowledge  into  our  faces,  was  performed 
as  stolidly  as  if  they  were  nothing  but  a  tube. 

At  last  the  teacher  asked  where  Sheffield  was,  and  was 
answered ;  it  was  then  pointed  to  by  the  dux,  as  a  dot  on 
a  skeleton  map.  And  now  came  a  flourish.  "  What  is 
Sheffield  famous  for  ?  "  Blank  stupor,  hopeless  vacuity, 
till  he  came  to  a  sort  of  sprouting  Dougal  Cratur  —  al- 
most as  wee,  and  as  glegg,  and  as  tousy  about  the  head, 
as  my  own  Kintail  terrier,  whom  I  saw  at  that  moment 
through  the  open  door  careering  after  a  hopeless  rabbit, 
with  much  benefit  to  his  muscles  and  his  wind  —  who 
was  trembling  with  keenness.  He  shouted  out  some- 
thing which  was  liker  "  cutlery  "  than  ai  ything  else,  and 
was  received  as  such  amid  our  rapturous  applause.  I 
then  ventured  to  ask  the  master  to  ask  small  and  red 
Dougal  what  cutlery  was  ;  but  from  the  sudden  erubes- 
cence  of  his  pallid,  ill-fed  cheek,  and  the  alarming  bright- 
ness of  his  eyes,  I  twigged  at  once  that  he  didn't  himself 
know  what  it  meant.  So  I  put  the  question  myself,  and 
was  not  surprised  to  find  that  not  one  of  them,  from 
Dougal  up  to  a  young  strapping  shepherd  of  eighteen, 
knew  what  it  was. 

I  told  them  that  Sheffield  was  famous  for  making 
knives,  and  scissors,  and  razors,  and  that  cutlery  meant 
the  manufacture  of  anything  that  cuts.  Presto  !  and  the 
blinds  were  all  up,  and  eagerness,  and  nous,  and  brains 
at  the  window.  I  happened  to  have  a  "Wharncliffe,  with 
"  Rodgers  and  Sons,  Sheffield,"  on  the  blade.  I  sent  it 
round,  and  finally  presented  it  to  the  enraptured  Dougal. 


EDUCATION  THROUGH    THE  SENSES.  307 

Would  not  each  one  of  those  boys,  the  very  boobiest 
there,  know  that  knife  again  when  they  saw  it,  and  be 
able  to  pass  a  creditable  competitive  examination  on  all 
its  ins  and  outs  ?  and  wouldn't  they  remember  "  cutlery  " 
for  a  day  or  two !  Well,  the  examination  over,  the 
minister  performed  an  oration  of  much  ambition  and 
difficulty  to  himself  and  to  us,  upon  the  general  question, 
and  a  great  many  other  questions,  into  which  his  Gaelic 
subtilty  fitted  like  the  mists  into  the  hollows  of  Ben-a- 
Houlich,  with,  it  must  be  allowed,  a  somewhat  similar 
tendency  to  confuse  and  conceal  what  was  beneath ;  and 
he  concluded  with  thanking  the  Chief,  as  he  well  might, 
for  his  generous  support  of  "  this  aixlent  cemetery  of 
abdication."  Cemetery  indeed !  The  blind  leading  the 
blind,  with  the  ancient  result ;  the  dead  burying  their 
dead. 

Now,  not  greater  is  the  change  we  made  from  that 
low,  small,  stifling,  gloomy,  mephitic  room,  into  the  glori- 
ous open  air,  the  loch  lying  asleep  in  the  sun,  and  telling 
over  again  on  its  placid  face,  as  in  a  dream,  every  hill 
and  cloud,  and  birch  and  pine,  and  passing  bird  and 
cradled  boat ;  the  Black  Wood  of  Rannoch  standing  "  in 
the  midst  of  its  own  darkness,"  frowning  out  upon  us 
like  the  Past  disturbed,  and  far  off  in  the  clear  ether,  as 
in  another  and  a  better  world,  the  dim  Shepherds  of 
Etive  pointing,  like  ghosts  at  noonday,  to  the  weird 
shadows  of  Glencoe ;  —  not  greater  was  this  change*,  than 
is  that  from  the  dingy,  oppressive,  weary  "  cemetery  "  of 
mere  word-knowledge  to  the  open  air,  the  light  and  lib- 
erty, the  divine  infinity  and  richness  of  nature  and  her 
teaching. 

We  cannot  change  our  time,  nor  would  we  if  we  could. 
It  is  God' s  time  as  well  as  ours.     And  our  time  is  em 


303  EDUCATION   THROUGH  THE  SENSES. 

phatically  that  for  achieving  and  recording  and  teaching 
man's  dominion  over  and  insight  into  matter  and  its 
forces  —  his  subduing  the  earth ;  but  let  us  turn  now 
and  then  from  our  necessary  and  honest  toil  in  this  neo- 
Platonic  cavern  where  we  win  gold  and  renown,  and 
where  we  often  are  obliged  to  stand  in  our  own  light, 
and  watch  our  own  shadows  as  they  glide,  huge  and  mis- 
shapen, aci'oss  the  inner  gloom ;  let  us  come  out  betimes 
with  our  gold,  that  we  may  spend  it  and  get  "  goods  "  for 
it,  and  when  we  can  look  forth  on  that  ample  world  of 
daylight  which  we  can  never  hope  to  overrun,  and  into 
that  overarching  heaven  where,  amid  clouds  and  storms, 
lightning  and  sudden  tempest,  there  is  revealed  to  those 
who  look  for  them,  lucid  openings  into  the  pure,  deep 
empyrean,  "as  it  were  the  very  body  of  heaven  in  its 
clearness  ; "  and  when,  best  of  all,  we  may  remember 
Who  it  is  who  stretched  out  these  heavens  as  a  tent  to 
dwell  in,  and  on  whose  footstool  we  may  kneel,  and  out 
of  the  depths  of  our  heart  cry  aloud, — 

Te  Deum  veneramur, 
Te  Sancte  Pater  ! 

we  shall  return  into  our  cave,  and  to  our  work,  all  the 
better  of  such  a  lesson,  and  of  such  a  reasonable  service, 
and  dig  none  the  worse. 

Science  which  ends  in  itself,  or  still  worse,  returns 
upon  its  maker,  and  gets  him  to  worship  himself,  is  worse 
than  none  ;  it  is  only  when  it  makes  it  more  clear  thar 
before  who  is  the  Maker  and  Governor,  not  only  of  the 
objects,  but  of  the  subjects  of  itself,  that  knowledge  is 
the  mother  of  virtue.  But  this  is  an  endless  theme. 
My  only  aim  in  these  desultory  hints  is  to  impress  par- 
ents  and   teachers   with   the    benefits  of  the  study,  the 


EDUCATION   THROUGH  THE  SENSES.  309 

personal  engagement  —  with  their  own  hands  and  eyes, 
and  legs  and  ears  —  in  some  form  or  another  of  natural 
history,  by  their  children  and  pupils  and  themselves,  as 
counteracting  evil,  and  doing  immediate  and  actual  good. 
Even  the  immense  activity  in  the  Post-Office-stamp  line 
of  business  among  our  youngsters  has  been  of  immense 
use  in  many  ways,  besides  being  a  diversion  and  an  in- 
terest. I  myself  came  to  the  knowledge  of  Queensland, 
and  a  great  deal  more,  through  its  blue  twopenny. 

If  any  one  wishes  to  know  how  far  wise  and  clever 
and  patriotic  men  may  occasionally  go  in  the  way  of 
giving  "  your  son  "  a  stone  for  bread,  and  a  serpent  for 
a  fish,  —  may  get  the  nation's  money  for  that  which  is 
not  bread,  and  give  their  own  labor  for  that  which  satis- 
fies no  one ;  industriously  making  sawdust  into  the  shapes 
of  bread,  and  chaff  into  the  appearance  of  meal,  and 
contriving,  at  wonderful  expense  of  money  and  brains,  to 
show  what  can  be  done  in  the  way  of  feeding  upon  wind, 
—  let  him  take  a  turn  through  certain  galleries  of  the 
Kensington  Museum. 

"  Yesterday  forenoon,"  writes  a  friend,  "  I  went  to 
South  Kensington  Museum.  It  is  really  an  absurd  col- 
lection. A  great  deal  of  valuable  material  and  a  great 
deal  of  perfect  rubbish.  The  analyses  are  even  worse 
than  I  was  led  to  suppose.  There  is  an  analysis  of  a 
man.  First,  a  man  contains  so  much  water,  and  there 
you  have  the  amount  of  water  in  a  bottle  ;  so  much  albu- 
men, and  there  is  the  albumen  ;  so  much  phosphate  of 
lime,  fat,  hasmatin,  fibrine,  salt,  etc.,  etc.  Then  in  the  next 
case  so  much  carbon  ;  so  much  phosphorus  —  a  bottle 
with  sticks  of  phosphorus  ;  so  much  potassium,  and  there 
is  a  bottle  with  potassium  ;  calcium,  etc.  They  have  not 
bottles  of  oxygen,  hydrogen,  chlorine,  etc.,  but  they  have 


310  EDUCATION  THROUGH  THE  SENSES. 

cubical  pieces  of  wood  on  which  is  written  '  the  quantity 
of  oxygen  in  the  human  body  would  occupy  the  space  of 
170  (e.  g.)  cubes  of  the  size  of  this,'  etc.,  etc."  What 
earthly  good  can  this  do  any  one? 

No  wonder  that  the  bewildered  beings  whom  I  have 
seen  wandering  through  these  rooms,  yawned  more  fre- 
quently and  more  desperately  than  I  ever  observed  even 
in  church. 

So  then,  cultivate  observation,  energy,  handicraft,  in- 
genuity, outness  in  boys,  so  as  to  give  them  a  pursuit  as 
well  as  a  study.  Look  after  the  blade,  and  don't  coax  or 
crush  the  ear  out  too  soon,  and  remember  that  the  full 
corn  in  the  ear  is  not  due  till  the  harvest,  when  the  great 
School  breaks  up,  and  we  must  all  dismiss  and  go  our 
several  ways. 


VAUaHAN'S  POEMS,  £c. 


Otra  coti  Trpoa-cfiiXrj  —  ravra  Xoyt&o-de.  —  St.  Paul. 


VAUGHAN'S    POEMS,    &c. 

^HAT  do  you  think  of  Dr.  Charming,  Mr. 
Coleridge  ?  "  said  a  brisk  young  gentleman 
to  the  mighty  discourser,  as  he  sat  next 
'UV^  him  at  a  small  tea-party.  "Before  enter- 
ing upon  that  question,  sir,"  said  Coleridge,  opening 
upon  his  inquirer  those  '  noticeable  gray  eyes,'  with  a 
vague  and  placid  stare,  and  settling  himself  in  his  seat 
for  the  night,  "  I  must  put  you  in  possession  of  my 
views,  in  extenso,  on  the  origin,  progress,  present  con- 
dition, future  likelihoods,  and  absolute  essence  of  the 
Unitarian  controversy,  and  especially  the  conclusions  I 
have,  upon  the  whole,  come  to  on  the  great  question  of 
what  may  be  termed  the  philosophy  of  religious  differ- 
ence." In  like  manner,  before  telling  our  readers  what 
we  think  of  Henry  Vaughan,  the  Silurist,  or  of  "  V.," 
or  of  Henry  Ellison,  the  Bornnatural,  or  of  E.  V.  K., 
it  would  have  been  very  pleasant  (to  ourselves)  to  have 
given,  in  extenso,  our  views  de  He  Poeticd,  its  nature, 
its  laws  and  office,  its  means  and  ends ;  and  to  have 
made  known  how  much  and  how  little  we  agreed  on 
these  points  with  such  worthies  as  Aristotle  and  Plato, 
Horace  and  Richard  Baxter,  Petronius  Arbiter  and 
Blaise  Pascal,  Ulric  von  Hiitten  and  Boileau,  Hurdis 
and  Hurd,  Dr.  Arnold  and  Montaigne,  Harris  of  Salis- 


314  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

bury  and  his  famous  uncle,  Burke  and  "John  Buncle," 
Montesquieu  and  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Dr.  Johnson  and 
the  two  Wartons,  George  Gascoyne  and  Spenser's  friend 
Gabriel  Harvey,  Puttenham  and  Webbe,  George  Her- 
bert and  George  Sand,  Petrarch  and  Pinciano,  Vida  and 
Julius  Caesar  Scaliger,  Pontanus  and  Savage  Landor, 
Leigh  Hunt  and  Quinctilian,  or  Tacitus  (whichever  of 
the  two  wrote  the  Dialogue  De  Oratoribus,  in  which 
there  is  so  much  of  the  best  philosophy,  criticism,  and 
expression),  Lords  Bacon  and  Buchan  and  Dr.  Blair, 
Dugald  Stewart  and  John  Dryden,  Charles  Lamb  and 
Professor  Wilson,  Vinet  of  Lausanne  and  John  Foster, 
Lord  Jeffrey  and  the  two  brothers  Hare,  Drs.  Fuller 
and  South,  John  Milton  and  Dr.  Drake,  Dante  and 
"  Edie  Ochiltree,"  Wordsworth  and  John  Bunyan,  Plu- 
tarch and  Winkelman,  the  Coleridges,  Samuel,  Sara, 
Hartley,  Derwent,  and  Henry  Nelson,  Sir  Egerton 
Bridges,  Victor  Cousin  and  "  the  Doctor,"  George  Moir 
and  Madame  de  Stael,  Dr.  Fracastorius  and  Professor 
Keble,  Martinus  Scriblerus  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
Macaulay  and  the  Bishop  of  Cloyne,  Collins  and  Gray 
and  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  Hazlitt  and  John  Buskin, 
Shakspeare  and  Jackson  of  Exeter,  Dallas  and  De 
Quincey,  and  the  six  Taylors,  Jeremy,  William,  Isaac, 
Jane,  John  Edward,  and  Henry.  We  would  have  had 
great  pleasure  in  quoting  what  these  famous  women  and 
men  have  written  on  the  essence  and  the  art  of  poetry, 
and  to  have  shown  how  strangely  they  differ,  and  how 
as  strangely  at  times  they  agree.  But  as  it  is  not  re- 
lated at  what  time  of  the  evening  our  brisk  young  gen- 
tleman got  his  answer  regarding  Dr.  Channing,  so  it 
likewise  remains  untold  what  our  readers  have  lost  and 
gained  in  our  not  fulfilling  our  somewhat  extensive  desire. 


VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC.  315 

It  is  with  poetry  as  with  flowers  or  fruits,  and  the  de- 
licious juices  of  meats  and  fishes,  we  would  all  rather 
have  them,  and  smell  them,  and  taste  them,  than  hear 
about  them.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  know  all  about  a  lily, 
its  scientific  ins  and  outs,  its  botany,  its  archaeology,  its 
aesthetics,  even  its  anatomy  and  "  organic  radicals,"  but 
it  is  a  better  thing  to  look  at  itself,  and  "  consider "  it 
how  it  grows  — 

"  White,  radiant,  spotless,  exquisitely  pure." 

It  is  one  thing  to  know  what  your  peach  is,  that  it  is 
the  fruit  of  a  rosal  exogen,  and  is  of  the  nature  of  a  true 
drupe,  with  its  carpel  solitary,  and  its  style  proceeding 
from  the  apex,  —  that  its  ovules  are  anatropal,  and  that 
its  putamen  separates  sponte  sua  from  the  sacrocarp ;  to 
know,  moreover,  how  many  kinds  of  peaches  and  nec- 
tarines there  are  in  the  world,  and  how  happy  the  Cana- 
dian pigs  must  be  of  an  evening  munching  the  downy 
odoriferous  drupes  under  the  trees,  and  what  an  aroma 
this  must  give  to  the  resulting  pork,1  —  it  is  another  and 
a  better  thing  to  pluck  the  peach,  and  sink  your  teeth 
into  its  fragrant  flesh.  We  remember  only  one  excep- 
tion to  this  rule.  Who  has  ever  yet  tasted  the  roast  pig 
of  reality  which  came  up  to  the  roast  pig  of  Charles 
Lamb  ?  Who  can  forget  "  that  young  and  tender  suck- 
ling, under  a  moon  old,  guiltless  as  yet  of  the  style,  with 
no  original  speck  of  the  amor  immunditice  —  the  hered- 
itary failing  of  the  first  parent,  yet  manifest,  and  which, 
when  prepared  aright,  is,  of  all  the  delicacies  in  the  mw> 
dus  edibilis,  the  most  delicate  —  obsoniorum  facile  prin* 

1  We  are  given  to  understand  that  peach-fed  pork  is  a  poor  pork 
after  all,  and  goes  soon  into  decomposition.  We  are  not  sorry  to 
know  this. 


316  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

ceps  —  whose  fat  is  not  fat,  but  an  indefinable  sweet- 
ness growing  up  toward  it  —  the  tender  blossoming  of 
fat  —  fat  cropped  in  the  bud  —  taken  in  the  shoot  — 
in  the  first  innocence,  the  cream  and  quintessence  of 
the  child-pig's  yet  pure  food  —  the  lean  not  lean,  but  a 
kind  of  animal  manna  —  coelestis  —  cibus  ille  angelorum 

—  or  rather  shall  we  say,  fat  and  lean  (if  it  must  be  so) 
bo  blended  and  running  into  each  other,  that  both  to- 
gether make  but  one  ambrosial  result."  But  here,  aa 
elsewhere,  the  exception  proves  the  rule,  and  even  the 
perusal  of  "  Original "  Walker's  delicious  schemes  of 
dinners  at  Lovegrove's,  with  flounders  water-zoutched, 
and  iced  claret,  would  stand  little  chance  against  an  in- 
vitation to  a  party  of  six  to  Blackwall,  with  "  Tom 
Young  of  the  Treasury  "  as  Prime  Minister. 

Poetry  is  the  expression  of  the  beautiful  —  by  words 

—  the  beautiful  of  the  outer  and  of  the  inner  world ; 
whatever  is  delectable  to  the  eye  or  the  ear,  the  every 
sense  of  the  body  and  of  the  soul  —  it  presides  over 
veras  dulcedines  rerum.  It  implies  at  once  a  vision 
and  a  faculty,  a  gift  and  an  art.  There  must  be  the 
vivid  conception  of  the  beautiful,  and  its  fit  manifesta- 
tion in  numerous  language.  A  thought  may  be  poet- 
ical, and  yet  not  poetry;  it  may  be  a  sort  of  mother 
liquor,  holding  in  solution  the  poetical  element,  but 
waiting  and  wanting  its  precipitation,  —  its  concentra- 
tion into  the  bright  and  compacted  crystal.  It  is  the 
very  blossom  and  fragrancy  and  bloom  of  all  human 
thoughts,  passions,  emotions,  language;  having  for  its 
immediate  object  —  its  very  essence  —  pleasure  and  de- 
lectation rather  than  truth  ;  but  springing  from  truth,  as 
the  flower  from  its  fixed  and  unseen  root.  To  use  the 
words  of  Puttenham  in  reference  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 


VAUGHAN'S   POEMS,  ETC.  317 

poetry   is    a   lofty,   insolent    (unusual)    and    passionate 
thing. 

It  is  not  philosophy,  it  is  not  science,  it  is  not  moral- 
ity, it  is  not  religion,  any  more  than  red  is  or  ever  can 
be  blue  or  yellow,  or  than  one  thing  can  ever  be  another ; 
but  it  feeds  on,  it  glorifies  and  exalts,  it  impassion- 
ates  them  all.  A  poet  will  be  the  better  of  all  the  wis- 
dom, and  all  the  goodness,  and  all  the  science,  and  all 
the  talent  he  can  gather  into  himself,  but  qua  poet  he 
is  a  minister  and  an  interpreter  of  to  kclXov,  and  of  noth- 
ing else.  Philosophy  and  poetry  are  not  opposites,  but 
neither  are  they  convertibles.  They  are  twin  sisters  ;  — 
in  the  words  of  Augustine  :  —  Philocalia  et  Philo- 
sophia  prope  similiter  cognominatce  sunt,  et  quasi  gen- 
tiles inter  se  videri  volunt  et  sunt.  Quid  est  enim  Phi- 
losophia?  amor  sap i 'entice.  Quid  Philocalia?  amor  pul- 
chritudinis.  Germance  igitur  istce  sunt  prorsus,  et  eodem 
parente  procreatce.'"  Fracastorius  beautifully  illustrates 
this  in  his  "  Naugerius,  sive  De  Poeticd  Dialogus."  He 
has  been  dividing  writers,  or  composers  as  he  calls  them, 
into  historians,  or  those  who  record  appearances  ;  phi- 
losophers, who  seek  out  causes ;  and  poets,  who  perceive 
and  express  veras  pulchritudines  rerum,  quicquid  max- 
imum et  magnijicum,  quicquid  pulcherrimum,  quicquid 
dulcissimum  ;  and  as  an  example,  he  sa}'S,  if  the  his- 
torian describe  the  ongoings  of  this  visible  universe,  I 
am  taught ;  if  the  philosopher  announce  the  doctrine  of 
a  spiritual  essence  pervading  and  regulating  all  things, 
I  admire ;  but  if  the  poet  take  up  the  same  theme,  and 

sing  — 

"  Principio  caelum  ac  terras  camposque  liquentes 
1/ucentemque  globum  lurue,  titaniaque  astra 
Spiritus  intus  alit ;  totamque  infusaper  artus 
Mens  agitat  molem  et  magno  se  corporc  miscet.'" 


318  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

"  Si  inquam,  eandem  rem,  hoc  pacto  referat  miki,  non 
admirabor  solum,  sed  adamabo :  et  divinum  nescio  quid, 
in  ctnimum  mihi  immissum  existimabo." 

In  the  quotation  which  he  gives,  we  at  once  detect  the 
proper  tools  and  cunning  of  the  poet :  fancy  gives  us 
liquentes  campos,  titania  astra,  lucentem  globum  lunce, 
and  fantasy  or  imagination,  in  virtue  of  its  royal  and 
transmuting  power,  gives  us  intus  edit  —  infusa  per  ar- 
tus  —  and  that  magnificent  idea,  magno  se  corpore  miscet 
- —  this  is  the  divinum  nescio  quid  —  the  proper  work  of 
the  imagination  —  the  master  and  specific  faculty  of  the 
poet  —  that  which  makes  him  what  he  is,  as  the  wings 
make  a  bird,  and  which,  to  borrow  the  noble  words  of 
the  Book  of  Wisdom,  "  is  more  moving  than  motion,  — 
is  one  only,  and  yet  manifold,  subtle,  lively,  clear,  plain, 
quick,  which  cannot  be  letted,  passing  and  going  through 
all  things  by  reason  of  her  pureness  ;  being  one,  she  can 
do  all  things ;  and  remaining  in  herself,  she  maketh  all 
things  new." 

The  following  is  Fracastorius'  definition  of  a  man  who 
not  only  writes  verses,  but  is  by  nature  a  poet :  "  Est 
autem  ille  naturd  poeta,  qui  ctptus  est  veris  rerum  pul~ 
chritudinibus  capi  monerique  ;  et  qui  per  illas  loqui  et 
scribere  potest ;  "  and  he  gives  the  lines  of  Virgil,  — 

"  Aut  sicuti  nigrum 
Ilicibus  crebris  sacra  nemus  accubat  umbra," 

as  an  instance  of  the  poetical  transformation.  All  that 
was  merely  actual  or  informative  might  have  been  given 
in  the  words  sicuti  nemus,  but  fantasy  sets  to  work,  and 
videte,  per  quas  pidchritudines,  nemus  depinxit ;  addens 
ACCUBAT,  et  nigrum  crebris  ilicibus  et  SACRA  UMBRA  ! 
quam  ob  rem,  recte  Pontanus  dicebat,  jinem  esse  poetce, 
opposite  dicere  ad  admirationem,  simpliciter,  et  per  uni- 


VADGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC  319 

versalem  bene  dicendi  ideam.  This  is  what  we  call  the 
beau  ideal,  or  kolt  i^o^rjv  the  ideal  —  what  Bacon  de- 
scribes as  "  a  more  ample  greatness,  a  more  exact  good- 
ness, and  a  more  absolute  variety  than  can  be  found  in 
the  nature  of  things,  the  world  being  in  proportion  in- 
ferior to  the  soul,  and  the  exhibition  of  which  doth  raise 
and  erect  the  mind  by  submitting  the  shows  of  things  to 
the  desires  of  the  mind."  It  is  "  the  wondrous  and  goodly 
paterne "  of  which  Spenser  sings  in  his  "  Hymne  in 
honour  of  Beautie  :  "  — 

"  What  time  this  world's  great  Workmaister  did  cast 
To  make  al  things  such  as  we  now  hehold, 
It  seems  that  he  before  his  eyes  hadplast 
A  goodly  Paterne,  to  whose  perfect  mould 
He  fashioned  them,  as  comely  as  he  could, 
That  now  so  faire  and  seemly  they  appeare, 
As  nought  may  be  amended  any  wheare. 

"  That  wondrous  Paterne  wheresoere  it  bee, 
Whether  in  earth  layd  up  in  secret  store, 
Or  else  in  heaven,  that  no  man  may  it  see 
With  sinfull  eyes,  for  feare  it  to  deflore, 
Is  perfect  Beautie,  which  all  men  adore  — 
That  is  the  thing  that  giveth  pleasant  grace 
To  all  things  fair. 

"  For  through  infusion  of  celestial  powre 
The  duller  earth  it  quickneth  vrith  delight, 
And  life-full  spirits  privily  doth  powre 
Through  all  theparts,  that  to  the  looker's  sight 
They  seeme  to  please." 

It  is  that  "  loveliness "  which  Mr.  Ruskin  calls  "  the 
signature  of  God  on  his  works,"  the  dazzling  printings 
of  His  fingers,  and  to  the  unfolding  of  which  he  has 
devoted,  with  so  much  of  the  highest  philosophy  and 
eloquence,  a  great  part  of  the  second  volume  of  "  Mod- 
ern Painters." 


32(  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

But  we  are  as  bad  as  Mr.  Coleridge,  and  are  defraud- 
ing our  readers  of  their  fruits  and  flowers,  their  peaches 
and  lilies. 

Henry  Vaughan,  "  Silurist,"  as  he  was  called,  from  his 
being  born  in  South  Wales,  the  country  of  the  Silures, 
was  sprung  from  one  of  the  most  ancient  and  noble  fami- 
lies of  the  Principality.  Two  of  his  ancestors,  Sir  Roger 
Vaughan  and  Sir  David  Gam,  fell  at  Agincourt.  It  is 
said  that  Shakspeare  visited  Scethrog,  the  family  castle 
in  Brecknockshire ;  and  Malone  guesses  that  it  was 
when  there  that  he  fell  in  with  the  word  "  Puck." 
Near  Scethrog,  there  is  Cwn-Pooky,  or  Pwcca,  the 
Goblin's  valley,  which  belonged  to  the  Vaughans ;  and 
Crofton  Croker  gives,  in  his  Fairy  Legends,  a  fac-simile 
of  a  portrait,  drawn  by  a  Welsh  peasant,  of  a  Pwcca, 
which  (whom  ?)  he  himself  had  seen  sitting  on  a  mile- 
stone,1 by  the  roadside,  in  the  early  morning,  a  very 
unlikely  personage,  one  would  think,  to  say, — 

1  We  confess  to  being  considerably  affected  when  we  look  at  this 
odd  little  fellow,  as  he  sits  there  with  his  innocent  upturned  toes,  and 
a  certain  forlorn  dignity  and  meek  sadness,  as  of  "  one  who  once  had 
wings."  What  is  he'?  and  whence?  Is  he  a  surface  or  a  substance? 
is  he  smooth  and  warm  ?  is  he  glossy,  like  a  blackberry  ?  or  has  he  on 
him  "the  raven  down  of  darkness,"  like  an  unfledged  chick  of  night? 
and  if  we  smoothed  him,  would  he  smile?  Does  that  large  eye  wink? 
and  is  it  a  hole  through  to  the  other  side?  (whatever  that  may  be;) 
and  is  that  a  small  crescent  moon  of  darkness  swimming  in  its  disc? 
or  does  the  eye  disclose  a  bright  light  from  within,  where  his  soul  sits 
and  enjoys  bright  day?  Is  he  a  point  of  admiration  whose  head  is  too 
heavy,  or  a  quaver  or  crotchet  that  has  lost  his  neighbors,  and  fallen 
out  of  the  scale?  Is  he  an  aspiring  Tadpole  in  search  of  an  idea? 
What  have  been  and  what  will  be  the  fortunes  of  this  our  small  Nigel 
(Nigellus)'}  Think  of  " Elia "  having  him  sent  up  from  the  Goblin 
Valley,  packed  in  wool,  and  finding  him  lively !  how  he  and  "  Mary  " 
would  doat  upon  him,  feeding  him  upon  some  celestial,  unspeakable 
pap,  "  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes,  or  Cytherea's  breath." 


VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC.  321 

"  I  go,  I  go ;  look  how  I  go ; 
Swifter  than  arrow  from  the  Tartar's  bow." 

We  can   more  easily  imagine  him  as  one   of  those 

Sprites  — 

"  That  do  run 
By  the  triple  Hecat's  team, 
From  the  presence  of  the  Sun, 
Following  darkness  like  a  dream." 

Henry,  our  poet,  was  born  in  1621 ;  and  had  a  twin- 
brother,  Thomas.  Newton,  his  birthplace,  is  now  a 
farm-house  on  the  banks  of  the  Usk,  the  scenery  of 
which  is  of  great  beauty.  The  twins  entered  Jesus  Col- 
lege, Oxford,  in  1638.  This  was  early  in  the  Great 
Rebellion,  and  Charles  then  kept  his  Court  at  Oxford. 
The  young  Vaughans  were  hot  Royalists ;  Thomas  bore 
arms,  and  Henry  was  imprisoned.  Thomas,  after  many 
perils,  retired  to  Oxford,  and  devoted  his  life  to  alchemy, 
under  the  patronage  of  Sir  Robert  Murray,  Secretary  of 
State  for  Scotland,  himself  addicted  to  these  studies.  He 
published  a  number  of  works,  with  such  titles  as  "  An- 
throposophia  Theomagica,  or  a  Discourse  of  the  Nature 
of  Man,  and  his  State  after  Death,  grounded  on  his  Cre- 
ator's Proto-chemistry  ;  "  "  Magia  Adamica,  with  a  full 
discovery  of  the  true  Coslum  terrce,  or  the  Magician's 
Heavenly  Chaos  and  the  first  matter  of  all  things." 

Henry  seems  to  have  been  intimate  with  the  famous 
wits  of  his  time :  "  Great  Ben,"  Cartwright,  Randolph, 
Fletcher,  &c.     His   first   publication  was    in    1646:  — 

How  the  brother  and  sister  would  croon  over  him  "with  murmurs 
made  to  bless,"  calling  him  their  "tender  novice"  "in  the  first  bloom 
of  his  nigritude,"  their  belated  straggler  from  the  "rear  of  darkness 
thin,"  their  little  night-shade,  not  deadly,  their  infantile  Will-o'-the- 
wisp  caught  before  his  sins,  their  "  poor  Blot,"  "  their  innocent  Black- 
ness," their  "  dim  Speck." 
21 


322  VAUGHAJST'S   POEMS,  ETC 

"  Poems,  with  the  Tenth  Satyre  of  Juvenal  Englished, 
by  Henry  Vaughan,  Gent."  After  taking  his  degree  in 
London  as  M.  D.,  he  settled  at  his  birthplace,  Newton, 
where  he  lived  and  died  the  doctor  of  the  district.  About 
this  time  he  prepared  for  the  press  his  little  volume, 
"  Olor  Iscanus,  the  Swan  of  Usk,"  which  was  afterwards 
published  by  his  brother  Thomas,  without  the  poet's  con- 
sent. We  are  fortunate  in  possessing  a  copy  of  this 
curious  volume,  which  is  now  marked  in  the  Catalogues 
as  "  Rariss."  It  contains  a  few  original  poems  ;  some 
of  them  epistles  to  his  friends,  hit  off  with  great  vigor, 
wit,  and  humor.  Speaking  of  the  change  of  times,  and 
the  reign  of  the  Roundheads,  he  says,  — 

"  Here's  brotherly  Ruffs  and  Beards,  and  a  strange  sight 
Of  high  monumental  Hats,  tane  at  the  fight 
Of  eighty-eight;  while  every  Burgesse  foots 
The  mortal  Pavement  in  eternall  boots." 

There  is  a  line  in  one  of  the  letters  which  strikes  us 
as  of  great  beauty  :  — 

"  Feed  on  the  vocal  silence  of  his  eye." 

And  there  is  a  very  clever  poem  Ad  Amicum  Foenera- 
torem,  in  defiance  of  his  friend's  demand  of  repayment 
of  a  loan. 

There  is  great  beauty  and  delicacy  of  expression  in 
these  two  stanzas  of  an  epithalamium :  — 

"  Blessings  as  rich  and  fragrant  crown  your  heads, 
As  the  mild  heaven  on  roses  sheds, 
When  at  their  cheeks  (like  pearls)  they  weare 
The  clouds  that  court  them  in  a  tear. 

"  Fresh  as  the  houres  may  all  your  pleasures  be, 
And  healthfull  as  Eternitie ! 
Sweet  as  the  flowre's  first  breath,  and  close 
As  th'  unseen  spreadings  of  the  Rose 


VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC.  323 

When  she  unfolds  her  curtained  head, 
And  makes  her  bosome  the  Sun's  bed!  " 

The  translations  from  Ovid,  Boece,  and  Cassimir,  ar« 
excellent. 

The  following  lines  conclude  an  invitation  to  a 
friend :  — 

"Come  then!  and  while  the  slow  isicle  hangs 
At  the  stifle  thatch,  and  Winter's  frosty  pangs 
Benumme  the  year,  blithe  as  of  old  let  us 
Mid'  noise  and  war,  of  peace  and  mirth  discusse. 
This  portion  thou  wert  born  for.     Why  should  we 
Vex  at  the  time's  ridiculous  miserie? 
An  age  that  thus  hath  fooled  itself,  and  will, 
Spite  of  thy  teeth  and  mine,  persist  so  still. 
Let's  sit  then  at  this  fire;  and,  while  wee  steal 
A  revell  in  the  Town,  let  others  seal, 
Purchase,  and  cheat,  and  who  can  let  them  pay, 
Till  those  black  deeds  bring  on  the  darksome  day. 
Innocent  spenders  wee !  a  better  use 
Shall  wear  out  our  short  lease,  and  leave  the  obtuse 
Rout  to  their  husks.     They  and  their  bags  at  best 
Have  cares  in  earnest.     Wee  care  for  a  jest!  " 

When  about  thirty  years  of  age,  he  had  a  long  and 
serious  illness,  during  which  his  mind  underwent  an 
entire  and  final  change  on  the  most  important  of  all 
subjects  ;  and  thenceforward  he  seems  to  have  lived 
"  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly." 

In  his  Preface  to  the  "  Silex  Scintillans"  he  says, 
"  The  God  of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh  hath  granted  me 
a  further  use  of  mine  than  I  did  look  for  in  the  body  ; 
and  when  I  expected  and  had  prepared  for  a  message  of 
death,  then  did  he  answer  me  with  life ;  I  hope  to  his 
glory,  and  my  great  advantage  ;  that  I  may  flourish  not 
with  leafe  only,  but  with  some  fruit  also."  And  he 
speaks  of  himself  as  one  of  the  converts  of  "  that  blessed 
man,  Mr.  George  Herbert." 


324  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

Soon  after,  he  published  a  little  volume,  called  "Flora 
Soh'tudinis,"  partly  prose  and  partly  verse.  The  prose, 
as  Mr.  Lyte  justly  remarks,  is  simple  and  nervous,  un- 
like his  poetry,  which  is  occasionally  deformed  with  the 
conceit  of  his  time. 

The  verses  entitled  "  St.  Paulinus  to  his  wife  There- 
sia,"  have  much  of  the  vigor  and  thoughtfulness  and 
point  of  Cowper.  In  1655,  he  published  a  second 
edition,  or  more  correctly  a  re-issue,  for  it  was  not  re- 
printed, of  his  Silex  Scintillans,  with  a  second  part 
added.  He  seems  not  to  have  given  anything  after  this 
to  the  public,  during  the  next  forty  years  of  his  life. 

He  was  twice  married,  and  died  in  1695,  aged  73,  at 
Newton,  on  the  banks  of  his  beloved  Usk,  where  he  had 
spent  his  useful,  blameless,  and,  we  doubt  not,  happy  life ; 
living  from  day  to  day  in  the  eye  of  Nature,  and  in  his 
solitary  rides  and  walks  in  that  wild  and  beautiful  coun- 
try, finding  fuH  exercise  for  that  fine  sense  of  the  beauty 
and  wondrousness  of  all  visible  things,  "  the  earth  and 
every  common  sight,"  the  expression  of  which  he  has  so 
worthily  embodied  in  his  poems. 

In  "  The  Retreate,"  he  thus  expresses  this  passionate 
love  of  Nature  — 

"  Happy  those  early  dayes,  when  I 
Shin'd  in  my  Angell-infancy ! 
Before  I  understood  this  place 
Appointed  for  my  second  race, 
Or  taught  my  soul  to  fancy  ought 
But  a  white,  Celestiall  thought; 
When  yet  I  had  not  walkt  above 
A  mile  or  two  from  my  first  love, 
And  looking  back,  at  that  short  space, 
Could  see  a  glimpse  of  his  bright  face; 
When  on  some  gilded  Cloud  or  flowre 
My  gazing  soul  would  dwell  an  houre, 


VAUGHAN 'S  POEMS,  ETC.  325 

And  in  those  weaker  glories  spy 
Some  shadows  of  eternity; 
Before  I  taught  my  tongue  to  wound 
My  Conscience  with  a  sinfule  sound, 
Or  had  the  black  art  to  dispence 
A  sev'rall  sinne  to  ev'ry  sence, 
But  felt  through  all  this  fleshly  dresse 
Bright  shootes  of  everlastingnesse. 

0  how  I  long  to  travell  back, 
And  tread. again  that  ancient  track! 
That  I  might  once  more  reach  that  plaine, 
Where  first  I  left  my  glorious  traiue ; 
From  whence  th'  Inlightned  spirit  sees 
That  shady  City  of  Palme  trees." 

To  use  the  words  of  Lord  Jeffrey  as  applied  to  Shak- 
speare,  Vaughan  seems  to  have  had  in  large  measure 
and  of  finest  quality,  "  that  indestructible  love  of  flowers, 
and  odors,  and  dews,  and  clear  waters,  and  soft  airs  and 
sounds,  and  bright  skies,  and  woodland  solitudes,  and 
moonlight,  which  are  the  material  elements  of  poetry  ; 
and  that  fine  sense  of  their  undefinable  relation  to  mental 
emotion  which  is  its  essence  and  its  vivifying  power." 

And  though  what  Sir  Walter  says  of  the  country  sur- 
geon is  too  true,  that  he  is  worse  fed  and  harder  wrought 
than  any  one  else  in  the  parish,  except  it  be  his  horse  ; 
still,  to  a  man  like  Vaughan,  to  whom  the  love  of  nature 
and  its  scrutiny  was  a  constant  passion,  few  occupations 
could  have  furnished  ampler  and  more  exquisite  mani- 
festations of  her  magnificence  and  beauty.  Many  of  his 
finest  descriptions  give  us  quite  the  notion  of  their  hav- 
ing been  composed  when  going  his  rounds  on  his  Welsh 
pony  among  the  glens  and  hills,  and  their  unspeakable 
Bolitudes.  Such  lines  as  the  following  to  a  Star  were 
probably  direct  from  nature  on  some  cloudless  night :  — 

"  Whatever  'tis,  whose  beauty  here  below 
Attracts  thee  thus,  and  makes  thee  stream  and  flow, 


626  VAUGHAX'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

And  winde  and  curie,  and  wink  and  smile, 
Shifting  thy  gate  and  guile." 

He  is  one  of  the  earliest  of  our  poets  who  treats  ex« 
ternal  nature  subjectively  rather  than  objectively,  in 
which  he  was  followed  by  Gray  (especially  in  his  let- 
ters) and  Collins  and  Cowper,  and  in  some  measure  by 
Warton,  until  it  reached  its  consummation,  and  perhapa 
its  excess,  in  Wordsworth. 

We  shall  now  give  our  readers  some  specimens  from 
the  reprint  of  the  Silex  by  Mr.  Pickering,  so  admirably 
edited  by  the  Rev.  H.  F.  Lyte,  himself  a  true  poet,  of 
whose  careful  life  of  our  author  we  have  made  very 
free  use. 

The  Timbeb. 

"Sure  thou  didst  flourish  once!  and  many  Springs, 
Many  bright  mornings,  much  dew,  many  showers 
Past  o'er  thy  head:  many  light  Hearts  and  Wings, 
Which  now  are  dead,  lodg'd  in  thy  living  bowers. 

"And  still  a  new  succession  sings  and  flies; 

Fresh  groves  grow  up,  and  their  green  branches  shoot 
Towards  the  old  and  still  enduring  skies; 
While  the  low  Violet  thriveth  at  their  root. 

"  But  thou  beneath  the  sad  and  heavy  Line 

Of  death  dost  waste  all  senseless,  cold  and  dark; 
Where  not  so  much  as  dreams  of  light  may  shine, 
Nor  any  thought  of  greenness,  leaf  or  bark. 

"  And  yet,  as  if  some  deep  hate  and  dissent, 

Bred  in  thy  growth  betwixt  high  winds  and  thee, 
Were  still  alive,  thou  dost  great  storms  resent, 
Before  they  come,  and  know'st  how  near  they  be. 

"  Else  all  at  rest  thou  lyest,  and  the  fierce  breath 
Of  tempests  can  no  more  disturb  thy  ease ; 
But  this  thy  strange  resentment  after  death 
Means  only  those  who  broke  iu  life  thy  peace." 


VAUGHAN  S  POEMS,  ETC.  327 

This  poem  is  founded  upon  the  superstition  that  a  tree 
which  had  been  blown  down  by  the  wind  gave  signs  of 
restlessness  and  an^er  before  the  comino;  0f  a  storm  from 
the  quarter  whence  came  its  own  fall.  It  seems  to  us  full 
of  the  finest  fantasy  and  expression. 

The  "World. 

"I  saw  Eternity  the  other  night 
Like  a  great  Ring  of  pure  and  endless  light, 

All  calm  as  it  was  bright; 
And  round  beneath  it,  Time  in  hours,  days,  years, 

Driv'n  by  the  spheres 
Like  a  vast  shadow  mov'd,  in  which  the  world 

And  all  her  train  were  hurl'd." 

There  is  a  wonderful  magnificennce  about  this ;  and 
what  a  Bunyan-like  reality  is  given  to  the  vision  by 
"the  other  night" ! 


Man. 

"  Weighing  the  stedfastness  and  state 
Of  some  mean  things  which  here  below  reside, 
Where  birds  like  watchful  Clocks  the  noiseless  date 

And  Intercourse  of  times  divide, 
Where  Bees  at  night  get  home  and  hive,  and  flowrs, 

Early  as  well  as  late, 
Rise  with  the  Sun,  and  set  in  the  same  bowrs : 

"  I  would,  said  I,  my  God  would  give 
The  staidness  of  these  things  to  man !  for  these 
To  His  divine  appointments  ever  cleave, 

And  no  new  business  breaks  their  peace; 
The  birds  nor  sow  nor  reap,  yet  sup  and  dine, 

The  flowres  without  clothes  live, 
Yet  Solomon  was  never  drest  so  fine. 

"Man  hath  still  either  toyes  or  Care; 
He  hath  no  root,  nor  to  one  place  is  ty'd, 


328  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

But  ever  restless  and  Irregular 

About  this  Earth  doth  run  and  ride. 
He  knows  he  hath  a  home,  but  scarce  knows  wher©', 

He  says  it  is  so  far, 
That  he  hath  quite  forgot  how  to  go  there. 

"  He  knocks  at  all  doors,  strays  and  roams : 
Nay  hath  not  so  much  wit  as  some  stones  have, 
Which  in  the  darkest  nights  point  to  their  home* 

By  some  hid  sense  their  Maker  gave: 

Man  is  the  shuttle,  to  whose  winding  quest 

And  passage  through  these  looms 

God  order'd  motion,  but  ordain'd  no  ri»t." 

There  is  great  moral  force  about  this ;  its  measure  and 
words  put  one  in  mind  of  the  majestic  lines  of  Shirley, 
beginning 

"  The  glories  of  our  earthly  state 
Are  shadows,  not  substantial  things." 

Cock-crowing. 

"  Fatherof  lights !  what  Sunnie  seed, 

What  glance  of  day  hast  thou  confin'd 
Into  this  bird?     To  all  the  breed 
This  busie  Ray  thou  hast  assign'd; 
Their  magnetisme  works  all  night, 
And  dreams  of  Paradise  and  light. 

"  Their  eyes  watch  for  the  morning-hue, 
Their  little  grain  expelling  night 
So  shines  and  sings,  as  if  it  knew 
The  path  unto  the  house  of  light. 

It  seems  their  candle,  howe'er  done, 
Was  tinn'd  and  lighted  at  the  sunne." 

This  is  a  conceit,  but  an  exquisite  one. 

Providence. 

"  Sacred  and  secret  hand ! 
By  whose  assisting,  swift  command 


VAUGIIAN'S  POEMS,  ETC.  329 

The  Angel  shewd  that  holy  "Well, 
Which  freed  poor  Hagar  from  her  fears, 
And  turn'd  to  smiles  the  begging  tears 

Of  yong  distressed  Ishmael." 

There  is  something  very  beautiful  and  touching  in  the 
opening  of  this  on  Providence,  and  in  the  "  yong  dis- 
tressed Ishmael." 

The  Dawning. 

"Ah!  what  time  wilt  thou  come?  when  shall  that  crie, 
The  BridegroomeV  Comming!  fill  the  sky? 
Shall  it  in  the  Evening  run 
When  our  words  and  works  are  done? 
Or  will  thy  all-surprizing  light 

Break  at  midnight, 
When  either  sleep,  or  some  dark  pleasure 
Possessetb  mad  man  without  measure? 
Or  shall  these  early,  fragrant  hours 

Unlock  thy  bowres  ? 
And  with  their  blush  of  light  descry 
Thy  locks  crown'd  with  eternitie  ? 
Indeed,  it  is  the  only  time 
That  with  thy  glory  doth  best  chime; 
All  now  are  stirring,  ev'ry  field 
Full  hymns  doth  yield ; 
The  whole  Creation  shakes  oiF  night, 
And  for  thy  shadow  looks  the  light." 

This  last  line  is  full  of  grandeur  and  originality. 

The  Law  and  the  Gospel. 

"  Lord,  when  thou  didst  on  Sinai  pitch, 
And  shine  from  Paran,  when  a  firie  Law, 
Pronounc'd  with  thunder  and  thy  threats,  did  thaw 
Thy  People's  hearts,  when  all  thy  weeds  were  rich, 
And  Inaccessible  for  light, 
Terrour,  and  might;  — 
How  did  poore  flesh,  which  after  thou  didst  weare, 

Then  faint  and  fear! 
Thy  Chosen  flock,  like  leafs  in  a  high  wind, 
Whisper'd  obedience,  and  their  heads  inclin'd." 


330  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

The  idea  in  the  last  lines,  we  may  suppose,  was  sug- 
gested by  what  Isaiah  says  of  the  effect  produced  on 
Ahaz  and  the  men  of  Judah,  when  they  heard  that 
Rezin,  king  of  Syria,  had  joined  Israel  against  them. 
u  And  his  heart  was  moved,  and  the  heart  of  his  people, 
as  the  trees  of  the  wood  are  moved  by  the  winds." 

Holy  Scriptures. 

"  Welcome,  dear  book,  soul's  Joy  and  food !     The  feast 

Of  Spirits ;  Heav'n  extracted  lyes  in  thee. 
Thou  art  life's  Charter,  The  Dove's  spotless  nest 
Where  souls  are  hatch'd  unto  Eternitie. 

"In  thee  the  hidden  stone,  the  Manna  lies; 

Thou  art  the  great  Elixir  rare  and  Choice; 
The  Key  that  opens  to  all  Mysteries, 
The  Word  in  Characters,  God  in  the  Voice." 

This  is  very  like  Herbert,  and  not  inferior  to  him. 

In  a  poem  having  the  odd  mark  of  "  %"  and  which 
seems  to  have  been  written  after  the  death  of  some  dear 
friends,  are  these  two  stanzas,  the  last  of  which  is  singu- 
larly pathetic :  — 

"  They  are  all  gone  into  the  world  of  light ! 
And  I  alone  sit  lingring  here ! 
Their  very  memory  is  fair  and  bright, 
And  my  sad  thoughts  doth  clear. 

"  He  that  hath  found  some  fledg'd  bird's  nest  may  know 
At  first  sight  if  the  bird  be  flown; 
But  what  fair  Dell  or  Grove  he  sings  in  now, 
That  is  to  him  unknown." 

Referring  to  Nicodemus  visiting  our  Lord:  — 

The  Night.    (John  hi.  2.) 

"  Most  blest  believer  he ! 
Who  in  that  land  of  darkness  and  blinde  eyes 


VAUGHAN'S   POEMS,  ETC.  331 

Thy  long  expected  healing  wings  could  see, 
When  thou  didst  rise; 
And,  what  can  never  more  be  done, 
Did  at  midnight  speak  with  the  Sun! 


"  0  who  will  tell  me  where 
He  found  thee  at  that  dead  and  silent  hour? 
What  hallow'd  solitary  ground  did  bear 
So  rare  a  flower ; 

Within  whose  sacred  leaves  did  lie 

The  fulness  of  the  Deity? 

"  No  mercy-seat  of  gold, 
No  dead  and  dusty  Cherub,  nor  carved  stone, 
But  his  own  living  works,  did  my  Lord  hold 
And  lodge  alone; 
Where  trees  and  herbs  did  watch  and  peep 
And  wonder,  while  the  Jews  did  sleep. 

"  Dear  night!  this  world's  defeat; 
The  stop  to  busie  fools;  care's  check  and  curb; 
The  day  of  Spirits;  my  soul's  calm  retreat 
Which  none  disturb ! 

Christ's 1  progress  and  his  prayer  time; 

The  hours  to  which  high  Heaven  doth  chime. 

"God's  silent,  searching  flight: 
When  my  Lord's  head  is  filled  with  dew,  and  all 
His  locks  are  wet  with  the  clear  drops  of  night; 
His  still,  soft  call ; 
His  knocking  time;  the  soul's  d.  nb  watch, 
When  spirits  their  Fair  Kindred  catch. 

"  Were  all  my  loud,  evil  days, 
Calm  and  unhaunted  as  is  Thy  dark  Tent, 
Whose  peace  but  by  some  Angel's  wing  or  voice 
Is  seldom  rent ; 
Then  I  in  Heaven  all  the  long  year 
Would  keep,  and  never  wander  here." 

1  Mark  i.  35;  Luke  xxi.  37. 


332  VAUGHAN'S   POEMS,  ETC. 

At  the  end  he  has  these  striking  words  — 

"  There  is  in  God,  some  say, 
A  deep  but  dazzling  darkness " 

This  brings  to  our  mind  the  concluding  sentence  of 
Mr.  Ruskin's  fifth  chapter  in  his  second  volume  —  "  The 
infinity  of  God  is  not  mysterious,  it  is  only  unfathom- 
able ;  not  concealed,  but  incomprehensible  ;  it  is  a  clear 
infinity,  the  darkness  of  the  pure,  unsearchable  tea." 
Plato,  if  we  rightly  remember,  says  —  "  Truth  is  the 
body  of  God,  light  is  His  shadow." 

Death. 

"  Though  since  thy  first  sad  entrance 
By  just  Abel's  blood, 
'Tis  now  six  thousand  years  well  nigh, 
And  still  thy  sovereignty  holds  good; 
Yet  \>y  none  art  thou  understood. 

"  We  talk  and  name  thee  with  much  ease, 
As  a  tryed  thing, 
And  every  one  can  slight  his  lease, 
As  if  it  ended  in  a  Spring, 
Which  shades  and  bowers  doth  rent-free  bring. 

"  To  thy  dark  land  these  heedless  go, 
But  there  was  One 
Who  search'd  it  quite  through  to  snd  fro, 
And  then,  returning  like  the  Sun, 
Discover'd  all  that  there  is  done. 

"And  since  his  death  we  throughly  see 
All  thy  dark  way; 
Thy  shades  but  thin  and  narrow  be, 
Which  his  first  looks  will  quickly  fray: 
Mists  make  but  triumphs  for  the  day." 


VAUGHAN'R  POEMS,   ETC.  333 

THE    WATt\-FALL. 

•*  With  what  deep  murmurs,  through  time's  silent  stealth, 
Doth  thy  transparent,  cool  and  watry  wealth 

Here  flowing  fall, 

And  chide  and  call, 
As  if  his  liquid,  loose  Retinue  staid 
Lingring,  and  were  of  this  steep  place  afraid." 

The  Shower. 

"  Waters  above !    Eternal  springs ! 
The  dew  that  silvers  the  Dove's  wings! 
0  welcome,  welcome  to  the  sad ! 
Give  dry  dust  drink,  drink  that  makes  glad. 
Man}'  fair  Evenings,  many  flowers 
Sweetened  with  rich  and  gentle  showers, 
Have  I  enjoyed,  and  down  have  run 
Many  a  fine  and  shining  Sun; 
But  never,  till  this  happy  hour, 
Was  blest  with  such  an  evening  shower!  " 

What  a  curious  felicity  about  the  repetition  of  "  drink  " 
in  the  fourth  line. 

"  Isaac's  Marriage  "  is  one  of  the  best  of  the  pieces, 
but  is  too  long  for  insertion. 

"The  Rainbow" 

has  seldom  been  better  sung : 

"  Still  young  and  fine !  but  what  is  still  in  view 
We  slight  as  old  and  soil'd,  though  fresh  and  new. 
How  bright  wert  thou,  when  Shem's  admiring  eye 
Thy  burnisht,  flaming  Arch  did  first  descry ! 
When  Terah,  Nahor,  Haran,  Abram,  Lot, 
The  youthful  world's  gray  fathers  in  one  knot, 
Did  with  intentive  looks  watch  every  hour 
For  thy  new  light,  and  trembled  at  each  shower ! 
When  thou  dost  shine  darkness  looks  white  and  fair. 
Forms  turn  to  Musick,  clouds  to  smiles  and  air: 


334  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

Rain  gently  spends  his  honey-drops,  and  pours 
Balm  on  the  cleft  earth,  milk  on  grass  and  flowers. 
Bright  pledge  of  peace  and  Sunshine!  the  sure  tye 
Of  thy  Lord's  hand,  the  object y  of  His  eye ! 
When  I  behold  thee,  though  my  light  be  dim, 
Distant  and  low,  I  can  in  thine  see  Him 
Who  looks  upon  thee  from  His  glorious  throne, 
And  mindes  the  Covenant  'twixt  All  and  One. 

What  a  knot  of  the  gray  fathers  ! 

"Terah,  Nahor,  Haran,  Abram,  Lot!  " 

Our  readers  will  see  whence  Campbell  stole,  and  how 
he  spoiled  in  the  stealing  (by  omitting  the  word  "  youth- 
ful "),  the  well-known  line  in  his  "  Rainbow "  — 

"  How  came  the  world's  gray  fathers  forth 
To  view  the  sacred  sign." 

Campbell  did  not  disdain  to  take  this,  and  no  one  will 
say  much  against  him,  though  it  looks  ill,  occurring  in  a 
poem  on  the  rainbow  ;  but  we  cannot  so  easily  forgive 
him  for  saying  that  "  Vaughan  is  one  of  the  harshest 
even  of  the  inferior  order  of  conceit,  having  some  few 
scattered  thoughts  that  meet  our  eye  amidst  his  harsh 
pages,  like  wild  flowers  on  a  barren  heath." 

"  Rules  and  Lessons "  is  his  longest  and  one  of  his 
best  poems ;  but  we  must  send  our  readers  to  the  book 
itself,  where  they  will  find  much  to  make  them  grateful 
to  "  The  Silurist "  and  to  Mr.  Pickering,  who  has  already 
done  such  good  service  for  the  best  of  our  elder  literature. 

We  have  said  little  about  the  deep  godliness,  the  spir- 
itual Christianity,  with  which  every  poem  is  penetrated 
and  quickened.  Those  who  can  detect  and  relish  this 
best,  will  not  be  the  worse  pleased  at  our  saying  little 
about  it.     Vaughan's  religion  is   deep,  lively,  personal, 

i  Gen.  ix.  16. 


VAUGHAN'S   POEMS,   ETC.  335 

tender,  kindly,  impassioned,  temperate,  central.  His  re- 
ligion grows  up,  effloresces  into  the  ideas  and  forms  of 
poetry  as  naturally,  as  noiselessly,  as  beautifully  as  the 
life  of  the  unseen  seed  finds  its  way  up  into  the  "bright 
consummate  flower." 

Of  "  IX.  Poems  by  V.,"  we  would  say  with  the 
Quarterly,  ftaia  /lev  dXXa  'POAA.  They  combine  rare 
excellences ;  the  concentration,  the  finish,  the  gravity  of 
a  man's  thought,  with  the  tenderness,  the  insight,  the 
constitutional  sorrowfulness  of  a  woman's  —  her  purity, 
her  passionateness,  her  delicate  and  keen  sense  and  ex- 
pression. We  confess  we  would  rather  have  been  the 
author  of  any  one  of  the  nine  poems  in  this  little  volume, 
than  of  the  somewhat  tremendous,  absurd,  raw,  loud, 
and  fuliginous  "  Festus,"  with  his  many  thousands  of 
lines  and  his  amazing  reputation,  his  bad  English,  bad 
religion,  bad  philosophy,  and  very  bad  jokes  —  his  "  but- 
tered thunder "  (this  is  his  own  phrase),  and  his  poor 
devil  of  a  Lucifer  —  we  would,  we  repeat  (having  in 
this  our  suhita  ac  sceva  indignatio  run  ourselves  a  little 
out  of  breath),  as  much  rather  keep  company  with  "  V." 
than  with  Mr.  Bailey,  as  we  would  prefer  going  to  sea 
for  pleasure,  in  a  trim  little  yacht,  with  its  free  motions, 
its  quiet,  its  cleanliness,  to  taking  a  state  berth  in  some 
Fire-King  steamer  of  one  thousand  horse- power,  with 
his  mighty  and  troublous  throb,  his  smoke,  his  exasper- 
ated steam,  his  clangor,  and  fire  and  fury,  his  oils  and 
smells. 

Had  we  time,  and  were  this  the  fit  place,  we  could, 
we  think,  make  something  out  of  this  comparison  of 
the  boat  with  its  sail  and  its  rudder,  and  the  unseen, 
wayward,  serviceable  winds  playing  about  it,   inspiring 


336  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC 

it,  and  swaying  its  course,  —  and  the  iron  steamer,  with 
its  machinery,  its  coarse  energy,  its  noises  and  philos- 
ophy, its  ungainly  build  and  gait,  its  perilousness  from 
within ;  and  we  think  we  could  show  how  much  of 
what  Aristotle,  Lord  Jeffrey,  Charles  Lamb,  or  Edmund 
Burke  would  have  called  genuine  poetry  there  is  in  the 
slender  "  V.,"  and  how  little  in  the  big  "  Festus."  We 
have  made  repeated  attempts,  but  we  cannot  get  through 
this  poem.  It  beats  us.  We  must  want  the  Festus 
sense.  Some  of  our  best  friends,  with  whom  we  gen- 
erally agree  on  such  matters,  are  distressed  for  us,  and 
repeat  long  passages  with  great  energy  and  apparent 
intelligence  and  satisfaction.  Meanwhile,  having  read 
the  six  pages  of  public  opinion  at  the  end  of  the  third 
and  People's  edition,  we  take  it  for  granted  that  it  is 
a  great  performance,  that,  to  use  one  of  the  author's  own 
words,  there  is  a  mighty  "  somethingness"  about  it  —  and 
we  can  entirely  acquiesce  in  the  quotation  from  The  Sun- 
day Times,  that  they  "  read  it  with  astonishment,  and 
closed  it  with  bewilderment."  It  would  appear  from 
these  opinions,  which  from  their  intensity,  variety,  and 
number  (upwards  of  50),  are  curious  signs  of  the  times, 
that  Mr.  Bailey  has  not  so  much  improved  on,  as  hap- 
pily superseded  the  authors  of  Job  and  Ecclesiastes,  of 
the  Divine  Comedy,  of  Paradise  Lost  and  Regained, 
of  Dr.  Faustus,  Hamlet,  and  Faust,  of  Don  Juan,  the 
Course  of  Time,  St.  Leon,  the  Jolly  Beggars,  and  the 
Loves  of  the  Angels. 

He  is  more  sublime  and  simple  than  Job  —  more  roy- 
ally witty  and  wise,  more  to  the  quick  and  the  point 
than  Solomon  —  more  picturesque,  more  intense,  more 
pathetic  than  Dante  —  more  Miltonic  (we  have  no  other 
word)  than  Milton  —  more  dreadful,  more  curiously  bias- 


YAUGHAN'S   POEMS,  ETC.  337 

pliemous,  more  sonorous  than  Marlowe  —  more  worldly- 
wise  and  clevei',  and  intellectually  svelt  than  Goethe. 
More  passionate,  more  eloquent,  more  impudent  than 
Byron  —  more  orthodox,  more  edifying,  more  precocious 
than  Pollok  —  more  absorptive  and  inveterate  than  God- 
win ;  and  more  hearty  and  tender,  more  of  love  and 
manhood  all  compact  than  Burns  —  more  gay  than 
Moore  —  more  fj-vptdvovs  than  Shakspeare. 

It  may  be  so.  We  have  made  repeated  and  resolute 
incursions  in  various  directions  into  his  torrid  zone,  but 
have  always  come  out  greatly  scorched  and  stunned 
and  affronted.  Never  before  did  we  come  across  such 
an  amount  of  energetic  and  tremendous  words,  going 
"  sounding  on  their  dim  and  perilous  way,"  like  a  cat- 
aract at  midnight  —  not  flowing  like  a  stream,  nor  leap- 
ing like  a  clear  waterfall,  but  always  among  breakers  — 
roaring  and  tearing  and  tempesting  with  a  sort  of  trans- 
cendental din  ;  and  then  what  power  of  energizing  and 
speaking,  and  philosophizing  and  preaching,  and  laugh- 
ing and  joking  and  love-making,  in  vacuo  !  As  far  as 
we  can  judge,  and  as  far  as  we  can  keep  our  senses  in 
such  a  region,  it  seems  to  us  not  a  poem  at  all,  hardly 
even  poetical  —  but  rather  the  materials  for  a  poem, 
made  up  of  science,  religion,  and  love,  the  (very  raw) 
materials  of  a  structure  —  as  if  the  bricks  and  mortar, 
and  lath  and  plaster,  and  furniture,  and  fire  and  fuel  and 
meat  and  drink,  and  inhabitants  male  and  female,  of  a 
house  were  all  mixed  "  through  other  "  in  one  enormous 
imbroglio.  It  is  a  sort  of  fire-mist,  out  of  which  poetry, 
like  a  star,  might  by  curdling,  condensation,  crystalliza- 
tion, have  been  developed,  after  much  purging,  refining, 
and  cooling,  much  time  and  pains.     Mr.  Bailey  is,  we 

believe,  still  a  young  man  full  of  energy  —  full,  we  doubt 
22 


338  VAUGHAN'S   POEMS,  ETC 

not,  of  great  and  good  aims  ;  let  him  read  over  a  passage, 
we  dare  say  he  knows  it  well,  in  the  second  book  of  Mil- 
ton on  Church  Government,  he  will  there,  among  many 
other  things  worthy  of  his  regard,  find  that  "the  wily 
subtleties  and  refluxes  of  man's  thoughts  from  within," 
which  is  the  haunt  and  main  region  of  his  song,  may  be 
"  painted  out  and  described  "  with  "  a  solid  and  treat- 
able  smoothness"  If  he  paint  out  and  describe  after 
this  manner,  he  may  yet  more  than  make  up  for  this 
sin  of  his  youth ;  and  let  him  take  our  word  for  it  and 
fling  away  nine  tenths  of  his  adjectives,  and  in  the 
words  of  Old  Shirley  — 

"  Compose  his  poem  clean  without  'em. 
A  row  of  stately  Substantives  would  march 
Like  Switzers,  and  bear  all  the  fields  before  'em; 
Carry  their  weight;  show  fair,  like  Deeds  enroll'd; 
Not  Writs,  that  are  first  made  and  after  filed. 
Thence  first  came  up  the  title  of  Blank  Verse;  — 
You  know,  sir,  what  Blank  signifies;  — when  the  sense, 
First  framed,  is  tied  with  adjectives  like  points, 
Hang  't,  'tis  pedantic  vulgar  poetry. 
Let  children,  when  1]iey  versify,  stick  here 
And  there,  these  piddling  words  for  want  of  matter. 
Poets  write  masculine  numbers.1' 

Here  are  some  of  "  V.'s  "  Roses  — 

The  Grave. 

"I  stood  within  the  grave's  o'ershadowing  vault; 
Gloomy  and  damp  it  stretch'd  its  vast  domain ; 
Shades  were  its  boundary;  for  my  strain'd  eye  sought 
For  other  limit  to  its  width  in  vain. 

"  Faint  from  the  entrance  came  a  daylight  ray, 
And  distant  sound  of  living  men  and  things; 
This,  in  th'  encountering  darkness  pass'd  away, 
That,  took  the  tone  in  which  a  mourner  sings. 

"  I  lit  a  torch  at  a  sepulchral  lamp, 

Which  shot  a  thread  of  light  amid  the  gloom; 


VAUGHAN'S   POEMS,  ETC.  339 

And  feebly  burning  'gainst  the  rolling  damp, 
I  bore  it  through  the  regions  of  the  tomb. 

"  Around  me  stretch'd  the  slumbers  of  the  dead, 
Whereof  the  silence  ached  upon  my  ear ; 
More  and  more  noiseless  did  I  make  my  tread, 
And  yet  its  echoes  chill'd  my  heart  with  fear. 

"  The  former  men  of  every  age  and  place, 

From  all  their  wand'rings  gather'd,  round  me  lay; 
The  dust  of  wither'd  Empires  did  I  trace, 
And  stood  'mid  Generations  pass'd  away. 

liI  saw  whole  cities,  that  in  flood  or  fire, 

Or  famine  or  the  plague,  gave  up  their  breath; 
Whole  armies  whom  a  day  beheld  expire, 
Swept  by  ten  thousands  to  the  arms  of  Death. 

"  I  saw  the  old  world's  white  and  wave-swept  bones, 
A  giant  heap  of  creatures  that  had  been ; 
Far  and  confused  the  broken  skeletons 
Lay  strewn  beyond  mine  eye's  remotest  ken. 

"  Death's  various  shrines  — the  Urn,  the  Stone,  the  Lamp  — 
Were  scatter'd  round,  confused,  amid  the  dead; 
Symbols  and  Types  were  mould'ring  in  the  damp, 
Their  shapes  were  waning  and  their  meaning  fled. 

"  Unspoken  tongues,  perchance  in  praise  or  woe, 
Were  character'd  on  tablets  Time  had  swept; 
And  deep  were  half  their  letters  hid  below 

The  thick  small  dust  of  those  they  once  had  wept. 

"  No  hand  was  here  to  wipe  the  dust  away, 
No  reader  of  the  writing  traced  beneath; 
No  spirit  sitting  by  its  form  of  clay ; 
No  sigh  nor  sound  from  all  the  heaps  of  Death. 

"  One  place  alone  had  ceased  to  hold  its  prey  ; 
A  form  had pi'ess'd  it  and  was  there  no  more  ; 
The  garments  of  the  Grave  beside  it  lay, 
Where  once  they  wrapped  him  on  the  rocky  floor. 

"  He  only  with  returning  footsteps  broke 

Th"  eternal  calm  wherewith  the  Tomb  was  bound; 


340  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

Among  the  sleeping  Dead  alone  He  woke, 
And  bless'd  with  outstretch1  d  hands  the  host  around. 

"  Well  is  it  that  such  blessing  hovers  here, 

To  soothe  each  sad  survivor  of  the  throng, 
Who  haunt  thep&rtals  of  the  solemn  sphere, 
And  pour  their  woe  the  loaded  air  along. 

"  They  to  the  verge  have  follow'd  what  they  love, 
And  on  tti  insuperable  threshold  stand; 
With  cherished  names  its  speechless  calm  reprove, 
And  stretch  in  the  abyss  their  ungi'asp'd  hand. 

"  But  vainly  there  they  seek  their  soul's  relief, 
And  of  th'  obdurate  Grave  its  prey  implore; 
Till  Death  himself  shall  medicine  their  grief, 
Closing  their  eyes  by  those  they  wept  before. 

"  All  that  have  died,  the  Earth's  whole  race,  repose 
Where  Death  collects  his  Treasures,  heap  on  heap; 
O'er  each  one's  busy  day,  the  nightshades  close; 

Its  Actors,  Sufferers,  Schools,  Kings,  Armies  —  sleep." 

The  lines  in  italics  are  of  the  highest  quality,  both  in 
thought  and  word  ;  the  allusion  to  Him  who  by  dying 
abolished  death,  seems  to  us  wonderfully  fine  —  sudden, 
simple,  —  it  brings  to  our  mind  the  lines  already  quoted 
from  Vaughan :  — 

"  But  there  was  One 
Who  search'd  it  quite  through  to  and  fro, 
And  then  returning  like  the  Sun, 
Discover' d  all  that  there  is  done." 

What  a  rich  line  this  is  ! 

"  And  pour  their  woe  the  loaded  air  along." 

"  The  insuperable  threshold !  " 

Do  our  readers  remember  the  dying  Corinne's  words  ? 
Je  mourrais  seule  —  au  reste,  ce  moment  se  passe  de  se- 
cours  ;  nos  amis  ne  peuvent  nous   suivre   que  jusqu'au 


VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC.  341 

$euil  de   la   vie.     La,  commencent   des  pensees   dont  le 

trouble  et  la  profondeur  ne  sauraient  se  conjier. 

We  have  only  space  for  one  more  —  verses  entitled 

"  Heart's-Ease." 

Heart'  s-Ease. 

"  Oh,  Heart's-Ease,  dost  thou  lie  within  that  flower? 
How  shall  I  draw  thee  thence  ?  —  so  much  I  need 
The  healing  aid  of  thine  enshrined  power 
To  veil  the  past  —  and  bid  the  time  good  speed ! 

" I  gather  it  —  it  withers  on  my  breast; 

The  heart's-ease  dies  when  it  is  laid  on  mine; 
Methinks  there  is  no  shape  by  Joy  possess' d, 
Would  better  fare  than  thou,  upon  that  shrine. 

•'  Take  from  me  things  gone  by  —  oh !  change  the  past  — • 
Renew  the  lost —  restore  me  the  decay' d,  — 
Bring  back  the  days  whose  tide  has  ebb'd  so  fast  — 
Give  form  again  to  the  fantastic  shade ! 

"'  My  hope,  that  never  grew  to  certainty,  — 

My  youth,  that  perish'd  in  its  vain  desire,  — 
My  fond  ambition,  crush'd  ere  it  could  be 
Aught  save  a  self-consuming,  wasted  fire : 

•*  Bring  these  anew,  and  set  me  once  again 
In  the  delusion  of  Life's  Infancy  — 
I  was  not  happy,  but  I  knew  not  then 
That  happy  I  was  never  doom'd  to  be. 

:  Till  these  things  are,  and  powers  divine  descend  — 
Love,  kindness,  joy,  and  hope,  to  gild  my  day, 
In  vain  the  emblem  leaves  towards  me  bend, 
Thy  Spirit,  Heart's-Ease,  is  too  far  away!  " 

We  would  fain  have  given  two  poems  entitled  "  Bessy  " 
and  "  Youth  and  Age."  Everything  in  this  little  volume 
is  select  and  good.  Sensibility  and  sense  in  right  meas- 
ure and  proportion  and  keeping,  and  in  pure,  strong 
classical  language ;  no  intemperance  of  thought  or  phrase 
Why  does  not  "  V."  write  more  ? 


342  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

"We  do  not  very  well  know  how  to  introduce  our  friend 
M*\  Ellison,  "  The  Bornnatural,"  who  addresses  his 
*•  Madmoments  to  the  Light-headed  of  Society  at  large." 
We  feel  as  a  father,  a  mother,  or  other  near  of  kin  would 
at  introducing  an  ungainly  gifted  and  much  loved  son  or 
kinsman,  who  had  the  knack  of  putting  his  worst  foot 
foremost,  and  making  himself  imprimis  ridiculous. 

There  is  something  wrong  in  all  awkwardness,  a  want 
of  nature  somewhere,  and  we  feel  affronted  even  still, 
after  we  have  taken  the  Bornnatural  x  to  our  heart,  and 
admire  and  love  him,  at  his  absurd  gratuitous  self-befool- 
ment.  The  book  is  at  first  sight  one  farrago  of  oddities 
and  offences  —  coarse  foreign  paper  —  bad  printing  — 
italics  broad-cast  over  every  page  —  the  words  run  into 
each  other  in  a  way  we  are  glad  to  say  is  as  yet  quite 
original,  making  such  extraordinary  monsters  of  words 
as  these  —  beingsriddle  —  sunbeammotes  —  gooddeed  — 
midjune  —  summerair  —  selffavor  —  seraphechoes  — 
puredeedprorapter  —  barkskeel,  &c.  Now  we  like 
An^lo-Saxon  and  the  polygamous  German,2  but  we 
like  better  the  well  of  English  undefiled  —  a  well,  by 
the  by,  much  oftener  spoken  of  than  drawn  from ;  but 
to  fashion  such  words  as  these  words  are,  is  as  monstrous 
as  for  a  painter  to  compose  an  animal  not  out  of  the  ele- 
ments, but  out  of  the  entire  bodies  of  several,  of  an  ass, 

i  In  his  Preface  he  explains  the  title  Bornnatural,  as  meaning  u  one 
who  inherits  the  natural  sentiments  and  tastes  to  which  he  was  horn, 
still  artunsullied  and  customfree." 

2  ex.  gr.  —  Komtantinopolitanischerdudelsaclcspfeifergeselle.  Here  ia 
a  word  as  long  as  the  sea-serpent  —  but,  like  it,  having  a  head  and 
tail,  being  what  lawyers  call  unum  quid — not  an  up  and  down  series 
of  infatuated  phocce,  as  Professor  Owen  somewhat  insolently  asserts, 
Here  is  what  the  Bornnatural  would  have  made  of  it  — 

A  Coiistantinopolitanbaypiperoutof  ^apprenticeship. 


VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC.  843 

for  instance,  a  cock  and  a  crocodile,  so  as  to  produce  an 
outrageous  individual,  with  whom  even  a  duck-billed  Plat- 
ypus would  think  twice  before  he  fraternized  —  ornitho- 
rynchous  and  paradoxical  though  he  be,  poor  fellow. 

And  yet  our  Bornnatural's  two  thick  and  closely  small- 
printed  volumes  are  as  full  of  poetry  as  is  an  "  impas- 
sioned grape  "  of  its  noble  liquor. 

He  is  a  true  poet.  But  he  has  not  the  art  of  singling 
his  thoughts,  an  art  as  useful  in  composition  as  in  hus- 
bandry, as  necessary  for  young  fancies  as  young  turnips. 
Those  who  have  seen  our  turnip  fields  in  early  summer, 
with  the  hoers  at  their  work,  will  understand  our  refer- 
ence. If  any  one  wishes  to  read  these  really  remarkable 
volumes,  we  would  advise  them  to  begin  with  "  Season 
Changes  "  and  "  Emma,  a  Tale."  We  give  two  Odes  on 
Psyche,  which  are  as  nearly  perfect  as  anything  out  of 
Milton  or  Tennyson. 

The  story  is  the  well-known  one  of  Psyche  and  Cupid, 
told  at  such  length,  and  with  so  much  beauty  and  pathos 
and  picturesqueness  by  Apuleius,  in  his  "  Golden  Ass." 
Psyche  is  the  human  soul  —  a  beautiful  young  woman. 
Cupid  is  spiritual,  heavenly  love  —  a  comely  youth. 
They  are  married,  and  live  in  perfect  happiness,  but  by 
a  strange  decree  of  fate,  he  comes  and  goes  unseen,  tarry- 
ing only  for  the  night ;  and  he  has  told  her,  that  if  she 
looks  on  him  with  her  bodily  eye,  if  she  tries  to  break 
through  the  darkness  in  which  they  dwell,  then  he  must 
leave  her,  and  forever.  Her  two  sisters  —  Anger  and 
Desire,  tempt  Psyche.  She  yields  to  their  evil  counsel, 
and  thus  it  fares  with  her :  — 

Ode  to  Psyche. 

"  1.  Let  not  a  sigh  be  breathed,  or  he  is  flown ! 

With  tiptoe  stealth  she  glides,  and  throbbing  breast, 


344  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

Towards  the  bed,  like  one  who  dares  not  own 
Her  purpose,  and  half  shrinks,  yet  cannot  rest 
From  her  rash  Essay:  in  one  trembling  hand 
She  bears  a  lamp,  which  sparkles  on  a  sword; 
In  the  dim  light  she  seems  a  wandering  dream 
Of  loveliness :  'tis  Psyche  and  her  Lord, 
Her  yet  unseen,  who  slumbers  like  a  beam 
Of  moonlight,  vanishing  as  soon  as  scann'd! 

u  2.  One  Moment,  and  all  bliss  hath  fled  her  heart, 
Like  wiudstole  odours  from  the  rosebud's  cell, 
Or  as  the  earthdashed  dewdrop  which  no  art 
Can  e'er  replace :  alas !  we  learn  fullwell 
How  beautiful  the  Past  when  it  is  o'er, 
But  with  seal'd  eyes  we  hurry  to  the  brink, 
Blind  as  the  waterfall :  oh,  stay  thy  feet, 
Thou  rash  one,  be  content  to  know  no  more 
Of  bliss  than  thy  heart  teaches  thee,  nor  think 
The  sensual  eye  can  grasp  a  form  more  sweet  — 

u  3.  Than  that  which  for  itself  the  soul  should  chuse 
For  higher  adoration ;  but  in  vain ! 
Onward  she  moves,  and  as  the  lamp's  faint  hues 
Flicker  around,  her  charmed  eyeballs  strain. 
For  there  he  lies  in  undreamt  loveliness ! 
Softly  she  steals  towards  him,  and  bends  o'er 
His  slumberlidded  eyes,  as  a  lily  droops 
Faint  o'er  a  folded  rose:  one  caress 
She  would  but  dares  not  take,  and  as  she  stood, 
An  oildrop  from  the  lamp  fell  burning  sore ! 

u  4.  Thereat  sleepfray'd,  dreamlike  the  God  takes  Wing 
And  soars  to  his  own  skies,  while  Psyche  strives 
To  clasp  his  foot,  and  fain  thereon  would  cling, 
But  falls  insensate; 

•  •  •  •  • 

Psyche !  thou  shouldst  have  taken  that  high  gift 
Of  Love  as  it  was  meant,  that  mystery 
Did  ask  thy  faith,  the  Gods  do  test  our  worth, 
And  ere  they  grant  high  boons  our  heart  would  sift! 

"  5    Hadst  thou  no  divine  Vision  of  thine  own? 
Didst  thou  not  see  the  Object  of  thy  Love 
Clothed  with  a  Beauty  to  dull  clay  unknown? 
And  could  not  that  bright  Image,  far  above 


VAUGHAN'S   POEMS,  ETC.  345 

The  Reach  of  sere  Decay,  content  thy  Thought? 
Which  with  its  glory  would  have  wrapp'd  thee  round, 
To  the  Gravesbrink,  untouched  by  Age  or  Pain ! 
Alas !  we  mar  what  Fancy's  Womb  has  brought 
Forth  of  most  beautiful,  and  to  the  Bound 
Of  Sense  reduce  the  Helen  of  the  Brain !  " 

"What  a  picture  !  Psyche,  pale  with  love  and  fear, 
bending  in  the  uncertain  light,  over  her  lord,  with  the 
rich  flush  of  health  and  sleep  and  manhood  on  his  cheek, 
"  as  a  lily  droops  faint  o'er  a  folded  rose  I "  We  re- 
member nothing  anywhere  finer  than  this. 

Ode  to  Psyche. 

■ 

"  1.  Why  stand'st  thou  thus  at  Gaze 

In  the  faint  Tapersrays, 
With  strained  Eyeballs  fixed  upon  that  Bed? 

Has  he  then  flown  away, 

Lost,  like  a  Star  in  Day, 
Or  like  a  Pearl  in  Depths  unfathomed  ? 

Alas!  thou  hast  done  very  ill, 
Thus  with  thine  Eyes  the  Vision  of  thy  Soul  to  kill ! 

"  2.  Thought'st  thou  that  earthly  Light 

Could  then  assist  thy  Sight, 
Or  that  the  Limits  of  Reality 

Could  grasp  Things  fairer  than 

Imagination's  Span, 
Who  communes  with  the  Angels  of  the  Sky, 

Thou  graspest  at  the  Rainbow,  and 
Wouldst  make  it  as  the  Zone  with  which  thy  Waist  is  spanned 

"3.  And  what  find'st  thou  in  his  Stead? 

Only  the  empty  Bed ! 

•  •  •  •  • 

Thou  sought'st  the  Earthly  and  therefore 
The  heavenly  is  gone,  for  that  must  ever  soar! 

"4.  For  the  bright  World  of 

Pure  and  boundless  Love 
What  hast  thou  found  ?  alas !  a  narrow  room ! 


346  VAUGHAN'S   POEMS,  ETC. 

Put  out  that  Light, 
Restore  thy  Soul  its  Sight, 
For  better  'tis  to  dwell  in  outward  Gloom, 
Than  thus,  by  the  vile  Body's  eye, 
To  rob  the  Soul  of  its  Infinity! 

"5.  Love,  Love  has  Wings,  and  he 

Soon  out  of  Sight  will  flee, 
Lost  in  far  Ether  to  the  sensual  Eye, 

But  the  Soul's  Vision  true 

Can  track  him,  yea,  up  to 
The  Presence  and  the  Throne  of  the  Most  High: 
For  thence  he  is,  and  tho'  he  dwell  below, 
To  the  Soul  only  he  his  genuine  Form  will  show!  " 

Mr.  Ellison  was  a  boy  of  twenty-three  when  he  wrote 
thfs.  That,  with  so  much  command  of  expression  and 
of  measure,  he  should  run  waste  and  formless  and  even 
void,  as  he  does  in  other  parts  of  his  volumes,  is  very 
mysterious  and  very  distressing. 

How  we  became  possessed  of  the  poetical  Epistle  from 
"  E.  V.  K.  to  his  Friend  in  Town,"  is  more  easily  asked 
than  answered.  We  avow  ourselves  in  the  matter  to 
have  acted  for  once  on  M.  Proudhon's  maxim  — "  La 
propriete  c'est  le  vol."  We  merely  say,  in  our  defence, 
that  it  is  a  shame  in  "  E.  V.  K.,"  be  he  who  he  may,  to 
hide  his  talent  in  a  napkin,  or  keep  it  for  his  friends  alone. 
It  is  just  such  men  and  such  poets  as  he  that  we  most 
need  at  present,  sober-minded  and  sound-minded  and 
well-balanced,  whose  genius  is  subject  to  their  judgment, 
and  who  have  genius  and  judgment  to  begin  with  —  a 
part  of  the  poetical  stock  in  trade  with  which  many  of 
our  living  writers  are  not  largely  furnished.  The  Epistle 
is  obviously  written  quite  off-hand,  but  it  is  the  off-hand 
of  a  master,  both  as  to  material  and  workmanship.  He 
is  of  the  good  old  manly,  classical  school.     His  thoughts 


VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC.  347 

have  settled  and  cleared  themselves  before  forming  into 
the  mould  of  verse.  They  are  in  the  style  of  Stewart 
Rose's  vers  de  societe,  but  have  more  of  the  graphic  force 
and  deep  feeling  and  fine  humor  of  Crabbe  and  Cowper 
in  their  substance,  with  a  something  of  their  own  which 
is  to  us  quite  as  delightful.  But  our  readers  may  judge. 
After  upbraiding,  with  much  wit,  a  certain  faithless  town- 
friend  for  not  making  out  his  visit,  he  thus  describes  his 
residence :  — 

"  Though  its  charms  be  few, 
The  place  will  please  you,  and  may  profit  too;  — 
My  house,  upon  the  hillside  built,  looks  down 
On  a  neat  harbor  and  a  lively  town. 
Apart,  'mid  screen  of  trees,  it  stands,  just  where 
We  see  the  popular  bustle,  but  not  share. 
Full  in  our  front  is  spread  a  varied  scene  — 
A  royal  ruin,  gray,  or  clothed  with  green, 
Church  spires,  tower,  docks,  streets,  terraces,  and  trees, 
Back'd  by  green  fields,  which  mount  by  due  degrees 
Into  brown  uplands,  stretching  high  away 
To  where,  by  silent  tarns,  the  wild  deer  stray. 
Below,  with  gentle  tide,  the  Atlantic  Sea 
Laves  the  curved  beach,  and  fills  the  cheerful  quay, 
Where  frequent  glides  the  sail,  and  dips  the  oar, 
And  smoking  steamer  halts  with  hissing  roar." 

Then  follows  a  long  passage  of  great  eloquence,  truth, 
and  wit,  directed  against  the  feverish,  affected,  unwhole- 
some life  in  town,  before  which  he  fears 

"  Even  he,  my  friend,  the  man  whom  once  I  knew, 
Surrounded  by  blue  women  and  pale  men," 

has  fallen  a  victim  ;  and  then  concludes  with  these  lines, 
which  it  would  not  be  easy  to  match  for  everything  that 
constitutes  good  poetry.  As  he  writes  he  chides  himself 
for  suspecting  his  friend  ;  and  at  that  moment  (it  seems 
to  have  been  written   on  Christmas   day)  he  hears    the 


348  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC. 

song  of  a  thrush,  and  forthwith  he  "  bursts  into  a  song," 
as  full-voiced,  as  native,  as  sweet  and  strong,  as  that  of 
his  bright-eyed  feathered  friend. 

"  But,  hark  that  sound !  the  mavis !  can  it  be  ? 
Once  more !     It  is.    High  perched  on  yon  bare  tree, 
He  starts  the  wandering  winter  with  his  trill ; 
Or  by  that  sweet  sun  westering  o'er  the  hill 
Allured,  or  for  he  thinks  melodious  mirth 
Due  to  the  holy  season  of  Christ's  birth.  — 
And  hark !  as  his  clear  fluting  fills  the  air, 
Low  broken  notes  and  twitterings  you  may  hear 
From  other  emulous  birds,  the  brakes  among ; 
Fain  would  they  also  burst  into  a  song; 
But  winter  warns,  and  muffling  up  their  throats, 
They  liquid  —  for  the  spring  —  preserve  their  notes. 
0  sweet  preluding!  having  heard  that  strain, 
How  dare  I  lift  my  dissonant  voice  again  ? 
Let  me  be  still,  let  me  enjoy  the  time, 
Bothering  myself  or  thee  no  more  with  rugged  rhyme." 

This  author  must  not  be  allowed  to  "  muffle  up  his 
throat,"  and  keep  his  notes  for  some  imaginary  and  far- 
off  spring.  He  has  not  the  excuse  of  the  mavis.  He 
must  give  us  more  of  his  own  "  clear  fluting."  Let  him, 
with  that  keen,  kindly  and  thoughtful  eye,  look  from  his 
retreat,  as  Covvper  did,  upon  the  restless,  noisy  world  he 
has  left,  seeing  the  popular  bustle,  not  sharing  it,  and  let 
his  pen  record  in  such  verses  as  these  what  his  under- 
standing and  his  affections  think  and  feel  and  his  imagi- 
nation informs,  and  we  shall  have  something  in  verse  not 
unlike  the  letters  from  Olney.  There  is  one  line  which 
deserves  to  be  immortalized  over  the  cherished  bins  of 
our  wine-fanciers,  where  repose  their 

"  Dear  prisoned  spirits  of  the  impassioned  grape." 

What  is  good  makes  us  think  of  what  is  better,  as 
well,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  more,  than  of  what  is  worse. 


VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC  3  IS 

There  is  no  sweetness  so  sweet  as  that  of  a  large  and 
deep  nature  ;  there  is  no  knowledge  so  good,  so  strength- 
ening as  that  of  a  great  mind,  which  is  forever  filling 
itself  afresh.  "  Out  of  the  eater  comes  forth  meat ;  out 
of  the  strong  comes  forth  sweetness."  Here  is  one  of 
such  "  dulcedines  verve  "  —  the  sweetness  of  a  strong 
man :  — 

"  Now  came  still  evening  on,  and  twilight  gray 
Had  in  her  sober  livery  all  things  clad; 
Silence  accompany'd ;  for  beast  and  bird, 
They  to  their  grassy  couch,  these  to  their  nests, 
Were  slunk,  all  but  the  wakeful  nightingale ; 
She  all  night  long  her  amorous  descant  sung; 
Silence  was  pleased:  now  glow'd  the  firmament 
With  living  saphirs ;  Hesperus  that  led 
The  starry  host  rode  brightest,  till  the  moon, 
Rising  in  clouded  majesty,  at  length 
Apparent  queen  unveil'd  her  peerless  light, 
And  o'er  the  dark  her  silver  mantle  threw." 

Were  we  inclined  to  do  anything  but  enjoy  this  and 
be  thankful  —  giving  ourselves  up  to  its  gentleness,  in- 
forming ourselves  with  its  quietness  and  beauty,  —  we 
would  note  the  simplicity,  the  neutral  tints,  the  quietness 
of  its  language,  the  "  sober  livery  "  in  which  its  thoughts 
are  clad.  In  the  first  thirty-eight  words,  twenty-nine  are 
monosyllables.  Then  there  is  the  gradual  way  in  which 
the  crowning  fantasy  is  introduced.  It  comes  upon  us 
at  once,  and  yet  not  wholly  unexpected ;  it  "  sweetly 
creeps  "  into  our  "  study  of  imagination ; "  it  lives  and 
moves,  but  it  is  a  moving  that  is  "  delicate  ;  "  it  flows  in 
upon  us  incredibili  lenitate.  "  Evening  "  is  a  matter  of 
fact,  and  its  stillness  too  —  a  time  of  the  day  ;  and  "  twi- 
light "  is  little  more.  We  feel  the  first  touch  of  spiritual 
life  in  "  her  sober  livery,"  and  bolder  and  deeper  in  "  all 
things  clad."     Still  we  are  not  deep,  the  real  is  not  ye/ 


350  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS,  ETC 


transfigured  and  transformed,  and  we  are  brought  back 
into  it  after  being  told  that  "  Silence  accompanied,"  by 
the  explanatory  "  for,"  and  the  bit  of  sweet  natural  his- 
tory of  the  beasts  and  birds.  The  mind  dilates  and  is 
moved,  its  eye  detained  over  the  picture ;  and  then 
comes  that  rich,  "  thick  warbled  note  "  — "  all  but  the 
wakeful  nightingale;"  this  fills  and  informs  the  ear, 
making  it  also  "  of  apprehension  more  quick,"  an  1  we 
are  prepared  now  for  the  great  idea  coming  "  into  the 
eye  and  prospect  of  our  soul  "  —  silence  was  pleased  ! 
There  is  nothing  in  all  poetry  above  this.  Still  evening 
and  twilight  gray  are  now  Beings,  coming  on,  and  walk- 
ing over  the  earth  like  queens,  "  with  Silence," 

"  Admiration's  speaking'st  tongue," 

as  their  pleased  companion.  All  is  "  calm  and  free," 
and  "  full  of  life,"  it  is  a  "  Holy  Time."  What  a  pic- 
ture !  —  what  simplicity  of  means  !  what  largeness  and 
perfectness  of  effect !  — what  knowledge  and  love  of  na- 
ture !  what  supreme  art !  —  what  modesty  and  submis- 
sion !  what  self-possession  !  —  what  plainness,  what 
selectness  of  speech  !  "  As  is  the  height,  so  is  the  depth. 
The  intensities  must  be  at  once  opposite  and  equal.  As 
the  liberty,  so  the  reverence  for  law.  As  the  indepen- 
dence, so  must  be  the  seeing  and  the  service,  and  the  sub- 
mission to  the  Supreme  Will.  As  the  ideal  genius  and 
the  originality,  so  must  be  the  resignation  to  the  real 
world,  the  sympathy  and  the  intercommunion  with  Na- 
ture."—  Coleridge's  Posthumous  Tract  "The  Idea  of  Life." 

Since  writing  the  above,  our  friend  "  E.  V.  K."  has 
shown  himself  curiously  unaffected  by  "  that  last  in- 
firmity of  noble  minds,"  —  his  "  clear  spirit  "  heeds  all 


VAUGHAN'S   POEMS,  ETC.  3ol 

too  little  its  urgent  "  spur."     The  following  sonnets  aro 
all  we  can  pilfer  from  him.     They  are  worth  the  steal- 


ing 


An  Argument  in  Rhyme. 


"  Things  that  now  are  beget  the  things  to  be, 
As  they  themselves  were  gotten  by  things  past; 
Thou  art  a  sire,  who  yesterday  but  wast 
A  child  like  him  now  prattling  on  thy  knee; 
And  he  in  turn  ere  long  shall  offspring  see. 
Effects  at  first,  seem  causes  at  the  last, 
Yet  only  seem ;  when  off  their  veil  is  cast, 
All  speak  alike  of  mightier  energy, 
Received  and  pass'd  along.     The  life  that  flows 
Through  space  and  time,  bursts  in  a  loftier  source. 
What's  spaced  and  timed  is  bounded,  therefore  shows 
A  power  beyond,  a  timeless,  spaceless  force, 
Templed  in  that  infinitude,  before 
Whose  light-veil'd  porch  men  wonder  and  adore. 

ii. 

"  Wonder !  but  —  for  we  cannot  comprehend, 
Dare  not  to  doubt.     Man,  know  thyself!  and  know 
That,  being  what  thou  art,  it  must  be  so. 
We  creatures  are,  and  it  were  to  transcend 
The  limits  of  our  being,  and  ascend 
Above  the  Infinite,  if  we  could  show 
All  that  He  is  and  how  things  from  Him  flow. 
Things  and  their  laws  by  Man  are  grasp'd  and  kenn'dj 
But  creatures  must  no  more;  and  Nature's  must 
Is  Reason's  choice;  for  could  we  all  reveal 
Of  God  and  acts  creative,  doubt  were  just. 
Were  these  conceivable,  they  were  not  real. 
Here,  ignorance  man's  sphere  of  being  suits, 
'Tis  knowledge  self,  or  of  her  richest  fruits. 

in. 

"  Then  rest  here,  brother!  and  within  the  veil 
Boldly  thine  anchor  cast.     What  though  thy  boat 
No  shoreland  sees,  but  undulates  afloat 


352  VAUGHAN'S  POEMS.  ETC. 

On  soundless  depths ;  securely  fold  thy  sail. 

Ah !  not  by  daring  prow  and  favoring  gale 

Man  threads  the  gulfs  of  doubting  and  despond, 

And  gains  a  rest  in  being  unbeyond, 

Who  roams  the  furthest,  surest  is  to  fail; 

Knowing  nor  what  to  seek,  nor  how  to  find. 

Not  far  but  near,  about  us,  yea  within, 

Lieth  the  infinite  life.     The  pure  in  mind 

Dwell  in  the  Presence,  to  themselves  akin ; 

And  lo!  thou  sick  and  health-imploring  soul, 

He  stands  beside  thee  —  touch,  and  thou  art  whole.* 


DR.    CHALMERS. 


"  Fervet  inunensusque  ruit."  —  Hor. 

"  His  memory  long  will  live  uiuiie 

In  all  our  Jiearls.  as  mournful  Uyht 
That  broods  above  the  fallen  sun, 
And  dwells  in  heaven  half  the  nighty 

Tennyson. 

u  He  was  not  one  man,  he  was  a  thousand  men."  —  Sydney  Smith. 


DR.  CHALMERS. 


J  HEN,  towards  the  close  of  some  long  sum- 
mer day,  we  come  suddenly,  and,  as  we 
think,  before  his  time,  upon  the  broad  sun, 
"  sinking  down  in  his  tranquillity  "  into  the 
unclouded  west,  we  cannot  keep  our  eyes  from  the  great 
spectacle,  —  and  when  he  is  gone  the  shadow  of  him 
haunts  our  sight :  we  see  everywhere,  — upon  the  spot- 
less heaven,  upon  the  distant  mountains,  upon  the  fields, 
and  upon  the  road  at  our  feet,  —  that  dim,  strange, 
changeful  image  ;  and  if  our  eyes  shut,  to  recover  them- 
selves, we  still  find  in  them,  like  a  dying  flame,  or  like  a 
gleam  in  a  dark  place,  the  unmistakable  phantom  of  the 
mighty  orb  that  has  set,  —  and  were  we  to  sit  down,  as 
we  have  often  done,  and  try  to  record  by  pencil  or  by 
pen,  our  impression  of  that  supreme  hour,  still  would  it 
be  there.  We  must  have  patience  with  our  eye,  it  will 
not  let  the  impression  go,  —  that  spot  on  which  the  radi- 
ant disk  was  impressed,  is  insensible  to  all  other  outward 
things,  for  a  time :  its  best  relief  is,  to  let  the  eye  wander 
vaguely  over  earth  and  sky,  and  repose  itself  on  the  mild 
ehadowy  distance. 

So  it  is  when  a  great  arid  good  and  beloved  man  de- 
parts, sets  —  it  may  be  suddenly  —  and  to  us  who  know 
not  the  times  and  the  seasons,  too  soon.   We  gaze  eagerly 


356  DR.  CHALMERS. 

at  his  last  hours,  and  when  he  is  gone,  never  to  rise 
again  on  our  sight,  we  see  his  image  wherever  we  go, 
and  in  whatsoever  we  are  engaged,  and  if  we  try  to 
record  by  words  our  wonder,  our  sorrow,  and  our  affec- 
tion, we  cannot  see  to  do  it,  for  the  "  idea  of  his  life  "  is 
forever  coming  into  our  "  study  of  imagination  "  —  into 
all  our  thoughts,  and  we  can  do  little  else  than  let  our 
mind,  in  a  wise  passiveness,  hush  itself  to  rest. 
The  sun  returns  — he  knows  his  rising  — 

"  To-morrow  he  repairs  his  drooping  head, 
And  tricks  his  beams,  and  with  new  spangled  ore 
Flames  in  the  forehead  of  the  morning  sky; " 

but  man  lieth  down,  and  riseth  not  again  till  the  heavens 
are  no  more.  Never  again  will  he  whose  "  Meditations  " 
are  now  before  us,  lift  up  the  light  of  his  countenance 
upon  us. 

We  need  not  say  we  look  upon  him,  as  a  great  man,  as 
a  good  man,  as  aT)eloved  man,  —  quis  desiderio  sit  pudor 
tarn  cari  capitis  ?  We  cannot  now  go  very  curiously  to 
work,  to  scrutinize  the  composition  of  his  character,  — 
we  cannot  take  that  large,  free,  genial  nature  to  pieces, 
and  weigh  this  and  measure  that,  and  sum  up  and  pro- 
nounce ;  we  are  too  near  as  yet  to  him,  and  to  his  loss, 
he  is  too  dear  to  us  to  be  so  handled.  "  His  death,"  to 
use  the  pathetic  words  of  Hartley  Coleridge,  "  is  a  recent 
sorrow  ;  his  image  still  lives  in  eyes  that  weep  for  him." 
The  prevailing  feeling  is,  —  He  is  gone  —  "  abiit  ad 
plures — he  has  gone  over  to  the  majority,  he  has  joined 
the  famous  nations  of  the  dead." 

It  is  no  small  loss  to  the  world,  when  one  of  its  master 
spirits  —  one  of  its  great  lights  —  a  king  among  the  na- 
tions —  leaves  it.  A  sun  is  extinguished ;  a  great  at- 
tractive, regulating  power  is  withdrawn.     For  though  it 


DR.  CHALMERS.  357 

be  a  common,  it  is  also  a  natural  thought,  to  compare  a 
great  man  to  the  sun ;  it  is  in  many  respects  significant. 
Like  the  sun,  he  rules  his  day,  and  he  is  "  for  a  sign 
and  for  seasons,  and  for  days  and  for  years ; "  he  en- 
lightens, quickens,  attracts,  and  leads  after  him  his  host 
—  his  generation. 

To  pursue  our  image.  "When  the  sun  sets  to  us,  he 
rises  elsewhere  —  he  goes  on  rejoicing,  like  a  strong  man, 
running  his  race.  So  does  a  great  man  :  when  he  leaves 
us  and  our  concerns  —  he  rises  elsewhere  ;  and  we  may 
reasonably  suppose  that  one  who  has  in  this  world  played 
a  great  part  in  its  greatest  histories  —  who  has  through 
a  long  life  been  preeminent  for  promoting  the  good  of 
men  and  the  glory  of  God  —  will  be  looked  upon  with 
keen  interest,  when  he  joins  the  company  of  the  immor- 
tals. They  must  have  heard  of  his  fame ;  they  may  in 
their  ways  have  seen  and  helped  him  already. 

Every  one  must  have  trembled  when  reading  that 
passage  in  Isaiah,  in  which  Hell  is  described  as  moved 
to  meet  Lucifer  at  his  coming :  there  is  not  in  human 
language  anything  more  sublime  in  conception,  more 
exquisite  in  expression ;  it  has  on  it  the  light  of  the 
terrible  crystal.  But  may  we  not  reverse  the  scene  ? 
May  we  not  imagine,  when  a  great  and  good  man  —  a 
son  of  the  morning  —  enters  on  his  rest,  that  Heaven 
would  move  itself  to  meet  him  at  his  coming  ?  That  it 
would  stir  up  its  dead,  even  all  the  chief  ones  of  the 
earth,  and  that  the  kings  of  the  nations  would  arise  each 
one  from  his  throne  to  welcome  their  brother?  that 
those  who  saw  him  would  "  narrowly  consider  him,"  and 
6ay,  "  is  this  he  who  moved  nations,  enlightened  and 
bettered  his  fellows,  and  whom  the  great  Taskmaster 
welcomes  with  '  Well  done  ! '  " 


358  DR.  CHALMERS. 

"We  cannot  help  following  him,  whose  loss  we  now 
mourn,  into  that  region,  and  figuring  to  ourselves  his 
great,  childlike  spirit,  when  that  unspeakable  scene  bursts 
upon  his  view,  when,  as  by  some  inward,  instant  sense, 
he  is  conscious  of  God  —  of  the  immediate  presence  of 
the  All-seeing  Unseen  ;  when  he  beholds  "  His  honora- 
ble, true,  and  only  Son,"  face  to  face,  enshrined  in  "  that 
glorious  form,  that  light  unsufferable,  and  that  far-beaming 
blaze  of  majesty,"  that  brightness  of  His  glory,  that  ex- 
press image  of  His  person  ;  when  he  is  admitted  into 
the  goodly  fellowship  of  the  apostles  —  the  glorious  com- 
pany of  the  prophets  —  the  noble  army  of  martyrs  — 
the  general  assembly  of  just  men  —  and  beholds  with 
his  loving  eyes  the  myriads  of  "  little  ones,"  outnum- 
bering their  elders  as  the  dust  of  stars  with  which 
the  galaxy  is  filled  exceeds  in  multitude  the  hosts  of 
heaven. 

What  a  change !  death  the  gate  of  life  —  a  second 
birth,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye :  this  moment,  weak, 
fearful,  in  the  amazement  of  death  ;  the  next,  strong, 
joyful,  —  at  rest,  —  all  things  new  !  To  adopt  his  own 
words :  all  his  life,  up  to  the  last,  "  knocking  at  a  door 
not  yet  opened,  with  an  earnest  indefinite  longing,  —  his 
very  soul  breaking  for  the  longing,  —  drinking  of  water, 
and  thirsting  again  "  —  and  then  —  suddenly  and  at  once 
— ra  door  opened  into  heaven,  and  the  Master  heard 
saying,  "  Come  in,  and  come  up  hither !  "  drinking  of 
the  river  of  life,  clear  as  crystal,  of  which  if  a  man 
drink  he  will  never  thirst,  —  being  filled  with  all  the 
fulness  of  God ! 

Dr.  Chalmers  was  a  ruler  among  men  :  this  we  know 
historically ;  this  every  man  who  came  within  his  range 


{ 


DR.  CHALMERS.  359 


felt  at  once.  He  was  like  Agamemnon,  a  native  <xra£ 
dvSpwr,  and  with  all  his  homeliness  of  feature  and  de- 
portment, and  his  perfect  simplicity  of  expression,  there 
was  about  him  "  that  divinity  that  doth  hedge  a  king." 
You  felt  a  power,  in  him,  and  going  from  him,  drawing 
you  to  him  in  spite  of  yourself.  He  was  in  this  respect 
a  solar  man,  he  drew  after  him  his  own  firmament  of 
planets.  They,  like  all  free  agents,  had  their  centrifugal 
forces  acting  ever  towards  an  independent,  solitary  course, 
but  the  centripetal  also  was  there,  and  they  moved  with 
and  around  their  imperial  sun,  —  gracefully  or  not,  wil- 
lingly or  not,  as  the  case  might  be,  but  there  was  no 
breaking  loose :  they  again,  in  their  own  spheres  of 
power,  might  have  their  attendant  moons,  but  all  were 
bound  to  the  great  massive  luminary  in  the  midst. 

There  is  to  us  a  continual  mystery  in  this  power  of 
one  man  over  another.  We  find  it  acting  everywhere, 
with  the  simplicity,  the  ceaselessness,  the  energy  of  grav- 
itation ;  and  we  may  be  permitted  to  speak  of  this  influ- 
ence as  obeying  similar  conditions ;  it  is  proportioned  to 
bulk  —  for  we  hold  to  the  notion  of  a  bigness  in  souls  a3 
well  as  bodies  —  one  soul  differing  from  another  in  quan- 
tity and  momentum  as  well  as  in  quality  and  force,  and 
its  intensity  increases  by  nearness.  There  is  much  in 
what  Jonathan  Edwards  says  of  one  spiritual  essence 
having  more  being  than  another,  and  in  Dr.  Chalmers's 
question,  "  Is  he  a  man  of  wecht  ? " 

But  when  we  meet  a  solar  man,  of  ample  nature  — 
eoul,  body,  and  spirit ;  when  we  find  him  from  his  ear- 
liest years  moving  among  his  fellows  like  a  king,  moving 
them  whether  they  will  or  not  —  this  feeling  of  mystery 
is  deepened  ;  and  though  we  would  not,  like  some  men 
(who  should  know  better),  worship  the  creature  and  con- 


360  DR.  CHALMERS; 

vert  a  hero  into  a  god,  we  do  feel  more  than  in  other 
cases  the  truth,  that  it  is  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty 
which  has  given  to  that  man  understanding,  and  that  all 
power,  all  energy,  all  light,  come  to  him,  from  the  First 
and  the  Last  - —  the  Living  One.  God  comes  to  be  re- 
garded by  us,  in  this  instance,  as  he  ought  always  to  be, 
"  the  final  centre  of  repose  "  —  the  source  of  all  being, 
of  all  life  —  the  Terminus  ad  quern  and  the  Terminus  a 
quo.  And  assuredly,  as  in  the  firmament  that  simple 
law  of  gravitation  reigns  supreme  —  making  it  indeed 
a  kosmos  —  majestic,  orderly,  comely  in  its  going  —  rul- 
ing, and  binding  not  the  less  the  fiery  and  nomadic  com- 
ets, than  the  gentle,  punctual  moons  —  so  certainly,  and 
to  us  moral  creatures  to  a  degree  transcendantly  more 
important,  does  the  whole  intelligent  universe  move 
around  and  move  towards  and  in  the  Father  of  Lights. 

It  would  be  well  if  the  world  would,  among  the  many 
other  uses  they-  make  of  its  great  men,  make  more  of 
this,  —  that  they  are  manifestors  of  God  —  revealers  of 
His  will  —  vessels  of  His  omnipotence  —  and  are  among 
the  very  chiefest  of  His  ways  and  works. 

As  we  have  before  said,  there  is  a  perpetual  wonder  in 
this  power  of  one  man  over  his  fellows,  especially  when 
we  meet  with  it  in  a  great  man.  You  see  its  operations 
constantly  in  history,  and  through  it  the  Great  Ruler  has 
worked  out  many  of  His  greatest  and  strangest  acts.  But 
however  we  may  understand  the  accessory  conditions  by 
which  the  one  man  rules  the  many,  and  controls,  and 
fashions  them  to  his  purposes,  and  transforms  them  into 
his  likeness  —  multiplying  as  it  were  himself —  there 
remains  at  the  bottom  of  it  all  a  mystery  —  a  reaction 
between  body  and  soul  that  we  cannot  explain.  Gen- 
erally, however,  we  find  accompanying  its  manifestation. 


DR.  CHALMERS.  361 

a  capacious  understanding  —  a  strong  will  —  an  emo- 
tional nature  quick,  powerful,  urgent,  undeniable,  in 
perpetual  communication  with  the  energetic  will  and  the 
large  resolute  intellect  —  and  a  strong,  hearty,  capable 
body  ;  a  countenance  and  person  expressive  of  this  com- 
bination —  the  mind  finding  its  way  at  once  and  in  full 
force  to  the  face,  to  the  gesture,  to  every  act  of  the  body. 
He  must  have  what  is  called  a  "  presence  ;  "  not  that  he 
must  be  great  in  size,  beautiful,  or  strong ;  but  he  must 
be  expressive  and  impressive  —  his  outward  man  must 
communicate  to  the  beholder  at  once  and  without  fail, 
something  of  indwelling  power,  and  he  must  be  and  act 
as  one.  You  may  in  your  mind  analyze  him  into  his 
several  parts ;  but  practically  he  acts  in  everything  with 
his  whole  soul  and  his  whole  self;  whatsoever  his  hand 
finds  to  do,  he  does  it  with  his  might.  Luther,  Moses, 
David,  Mahomet,  Cromwell  —  all  verified  these  condi- 
tions. 

And  so  did  Dr.  Chalmers.  There  was  something 
about  his  whole  air  and  manner,  that  disposed  you  at 
the  very  first  to  make  way  where  he  went  —  he  held 
you  before  you  were  aware.  That  this  depended  fully 
as  much  upon  the  activity  and  the  quantity  —  if  we  may 
so  express  ourselves  —  of  his  affections,  upon  that  com- 
bined action  of  mind  and  body  which  we  call  temper- 
ament, and  upon  a  straightforward,  urgent  will,  as  upon 
what  is  called  the  pure  intellect,  will  be  generally  al- 
lowed ;  but  with  all  this,  he  could  not  have  been  and 
done,  what  he  was  and  did,  had  he  not  had  an  under- 
standing, in  vigor  and  in  capacity,  worth  v  of  its  great 
and  ardent  companions.  It  was  large,  and  free,  mobile, 
and  intense,  rather  than  penetrative,  judicial,  clear,  or 
fine,  —  so  that  in  one  sense   he  was   more   a  man   to 


362  DR.  CHALMERS. 

make  others  act  than  think;  but  his  own  actings  had 
always  their  origin  in  some  fixed,  central,  inevitable 
proposition,  as  he  would  call  it,  and  he  began  his  on- 
set with  stating  plainly,  and  with  lucid  calmness,  what 
he  held  to  be  a  great  seminal  truth ;  from  this  he  passed 
at  once,  not  into  exposition,  but  into  illustration  and  en- 
forcement —  into,  if  we  may  make  a  word,  overwhelming 
insistance.  Something  was  to  be  done,  rather  than  ex- 
plained. 

There  was  no  separating  his  thoughts  and  expressions 
from  his  person,  and  looks,  and  voice.  How  perfectly 
we  can  at  this  moment  recall  him !  Thundering,  flam- 
ing, lightening  in  the  pulpit ;  teaching,  indoctrinating, 
drawing  after  him  his  students  in  his  lecture-room ; 
sitting  among  other  public  men,  the  most  unconscious, 
the  most  king-like  of  them  all,  with  that  broad  leonine 
countenance,  that  beaming,  liberal  smile  ;  or  on  the  way 
out  to  his  home,  in  his  old-fashioned  great-coat,  with  his 
throat  muffled  up,  his  big  walking-stick  moved  outwards 
in  an  arc,  its  point  fixed,  its  head  circumferential,  a  sort 
of  companion,  and  playmate,  with  which  doubtless,  he 
demolished  legions  of  imaginary  foes,  errors,  and  stu- 
pidities in  men  and  things,  in  Church  and  State.  His 
great  look,  large  chest,  large  head,  his  amplitude  every 
way ;  his  broad,  simple,  childlike,  inturned  feet ;  his 
short,  hurried  impatient  step ;  his  erect,  royal  air ;  his 
look  of  general  good-will ;  his  kindling  up  into  a  warm 
but  vague  benignity  when  one  he  did  not  recognize 
spoke  to  him  ;  the  addition,  for  it  was  not  a  change,  of 
keen  specialty  to  his  hearty  recognition ;  the  twinkle 
of  his  eyes  ;  the  immediately  saying  something  very 
personal  to  set  all  to  rights,  and  then  the  sending  you 
off"  with  some  thought,  some  feeling,  some  remembrance, 


DR.   CHALMERS.  363 

making  your  heart  burn  within  you ;  his  voice  indescrib- 
able ;  his  eye  —  that  most  peculiar  feature  —  not  vacant, 
but  asleep  —  innocent,  mild,  and  large;  and  his  soul,  its 
great  inhabitant,  not  always  at  his  window ;  but  then, 
when  he  did  awake,  how  close  to  you  was  that  burning 
vehement  soul !  how  it  penetrated  and  overcame  you  ! 
how  mild,  and  affectionate,  and  genial  its  expression  at 
his  own  fireside  ! 

Of  his  portraits  worth  mentioning,  there  are  Watson 
Gordon's,  Duncan's  —  the  Calotypes  of  Mr.  Hill  — 
Kenneth  M'Leay's  miniatures  —  the  Daguerreotype,  and 
Steell's  bust.  These  are  all  good,  and  all  give  bits  of 
him,  some  nearly  the  whole,  but  not  one  of  them  that 
ri  0e.pix.6v,  that  fiery  particle  —  that  inspired  look  —  that 
"  diviner  mind  "  —  the  poco  piu,  or  little  more.  "Watson 
Gordon's  is  too  much  of  the  mere  clergyman  —  is  a 
pleasant  likeness,  and  has  the  shape  of  his  mouth,  and 
the  setting  of  his  feet  very  good.  Duncan's  is  a  work 
of  genius,  and  is  the  giant  looking  up,  awakening,  but 
not  awakened  —  it  is  a  very  fine  picture.  Mr.  Hill's 
Calotypes  we  like  better  than  all  the  rest ;  because  what 
in  them  is  true,  is  absolutely  so,  and  they  have  some  del- 
icate renderings  which  are  all  but  beyond  the  power  of 
any  human  artist ;  for  though  man's  art  is  mighty,  na- 
ture's is  mightier.  The  one  of  the  Doctor  sitting  with 
his  grandson  "  Tommy,"  is  to  us  the  best ;  we  have  the 
true  grandeur  of  his  form  —  his  bulk.  M'Leay's  is  ad- 
mirable —  spirited  —  and  has  that  look  of  shrewdness 
and  vivacity  and  immediateness  which  he  had  when  he 
was  observing  and  speaking  keenly ;  it  is,  moreover,  a 
fine,  manly  bit  of  art.  M'Leay  is  the  Eaeburn  of  min- 
iature painters  —  he  does  a  great  deal  with  little.  The 
Daguerreotype  is,  in  its  own  way,  excellent ;  it  gives  the 


364  DR.  CHALMERS. 

externality  of  the  man  to  perfection,  but  it  is  Dr.  Chal 
mers  at  a  stand-still  —  his  mind  and  feelings  "  pulled 
up  "  for  the  second  that  it  was  taken.  Steell's  is  a  noble 
bust  —  has  a  stern  heroic  expression  and  pathetic  beauty 
about  it,  and  from  wanting  color  and  shadow  and  the 
eyes,  it  relies  upon  a  certain  simplicity  and  grandeur ;  — 
in  this  it  completely  succeeds  —  the  mouth  is  handled 
with  extraordinary  subtlety  and  sweetness,  and  the  hair 
hangs  over  that  huge  brow  like  a  glorious  cloud.  We 
think  this  head  of  Dr.  Chalmers  the  artist's  greatest 
bust. 

In  reference  to  the  assertion  we  have  made  as  to  bulk 
forming  one  primary  element  of  a  powerful  mind,  Dr. 
Chalmers  used  to  say,  when  a  man  of  activity  and  public 
mark  was  mentioned,  "  Has  he  wecht  ?  he  has  prompti- 
tude —  has  he  power  ?  he  has  power  —  has  he  prompti- 
tude ?  and,  moreover,  has  he  a  discerning  spirit  ?  " 

These  are  great  practical,  universal  truths.  How 
few  even  of  our  greatest  men  have  had  all  these  three 
faculties  large  —  fine,  sound,  and  in  "perfect  diapason." 
Your  men  of  promptitude,  without  power  or  judgment, 
are  common  and  are  useful.  But  they  are  apt  to  run 
wild,  to  get  needlessly  brisk,  unpleasantly  incessant.  A 
•weasel  is  good  or  bad  as  the  case  may  be,  —  good  against 
vermin  —  bad  to  meddle  with  ;  —  but  inspired  weasels, 
weasels  on  a  mission,  are  terrible  indeed,  mischievous  and 
fell,  and  swiftness  making  up  for  want  of  momentum  by 
inveteracy  ;  "  fierce  as  wild  bulls,  untamable  as  flies." 
Of  such  men  we  have  nowadays  too  many.  Men 
are  too  much  in  the  way  of  supposing  that  doing  is 
being ;  that  theology  and  excogitation,  and  fierce  dog- 
matic assertion  of  what  they  consider  truth,  is  godliness; 
that  obedience  is  merely  an   occasional   great  act,  and 


DR.  CHALMERS.  365 

not  a  series  of  acts,  issuing  from  a  state,  like  the  stream 
of  water  from  its  well. 

"  Action  is  transitory  —  a  step  —  a  blow, 
The  motion  of  a  muscle  —  this  way  or  that ; 
'Tis  done  —  and  in  the  after  vacancy, 
We  wonder  at  ourselves  like  men  betrayed. 
Suffering  "  (obedience,  or  being  as  opposed  to  doing)  — 

"  Suffering  is  permanent, 

And  has  the  nature  of  infinity." 

Dr.  Chalmers  was  a  man  of  genius  —  he  had  his  own 
way  of  thinking,  and  saying,  and  doing,  and  looking 
everything.  Men  have  vexed  themselves  in  vain  to 
define  what  genius  is ;  like  every  ultimate  term  we  may 
describe  it  by  giving  its  effects,  we  can  hardly  succeed 
in  reaching  its  essence.  Fortunately,  though  we  know 
not  what  are  its  elements,  we  know  it  when  we  meet  it; 
and  in  him,  in  every  movement  of  his  mind,  in  every 
gesture,  we  had  its  unmistakable  tokens.  Two  of  the 
ordinary  accompaniments  of  genius  —  Enthusiasm  and 
Simplicity  —  he  had  in  rare  measure. 

He  was  an  enthusiast  in  its  true  and  good  sense ;  he 
was  "entheat,"  as  if  full  of  God,  as  the  old  poets  called 
it.  It  was  this  ardor,  this  superabounding  life,  this  im- 
mediateness  of  thought  and  action,  idea  and  emotion, 
setting  the  whole  man  a-going  at  once  —  that  gave  a 
power  and  a  charm  to  everything  he  did.  To  adopt  the 
old  division  of  the  Hebrew  Doctors,  as  given  by  Na- 
thanael  Culverwel,  in  his  "  Light  of  Nature  :  "  In  man 
we  have  —  1st  irv^vnia  £,{hottoiovv,  the  sensitive  soul,  that 
which  lies  nearest  the  body  —  the  very  blossom  and 
flower  of  life ;  2c?,  rbv  vow,  animam  rationis,  sparkling 
and  glittering  with  intellectuals,  crowned  with  light ;  and 
3c?,  tov  Ovjxbv,  impetum  animi,  motum  mentis,  the  vigor 


366  DR.   CHALMERS. 

and  energy  of  the  soul  —  its  temper  —  the  mover  of 
the  other  two  —  the  first  being,  as  they  said,  resident 
in  hepate  —  the  second  in  cerebro  —  the  third  in  corde, 
where  it  presides  over  the  issues  of  life,  commands  the 
circulation,  and  animates  and  sets  the  blood  a-moving. 
The  first  and  second  are  informative,  explicative,  they 
"  take  in  and  do  "  —  the  other  "  gives  out."  Now  in  Dr. 
Chalmers,  the  great  ingredient  was  the  6  #u/aos  as  in- 
dicating vis  animce  et  vitce,  —  and  in  close  fellowship 
with  it,  and  ready  for  its  service,  was  a  large,  capa- 
cious 6  vovs,  and  an  energetic,  sensuous,  rapid  to  7rve0/xa. 
Hence  his  energy,  his  contagious  enthusiasm  —  this  it 
was  which  gave  the  peculiar  character  to  his  religion, 
to  his  politics,  to  his  personnel ;  everything  he  did  was 
done  heartily  —  if  he  desired  heavenly  blessings  he 
"  panted  "  for  them  —  "  his  soul  broke  for  the  longing." 
To  give  again  the  words  of  the  spiritual  and  subtle 
Culverwel,  "  Religion  (and  indeed  everything  else)  was 
no  matter  of  indifferency  to  him.  It  was  Oep/xov  tl  irpay- 
/xa,  a  certain  fiery  thing,  as  Aristotle  calls  love  ;  it  re- 
quired and  it  got  the  very  flower  and  vigor  of  the 
spirit  —  the  strength  and  sinews  of  the  soul  —  the  prime 
and  top  of  the  affections  —  this  is  that  grace,  that  pant- 
ing grace  —  we  know  the  name  of  it  and  that's  all  — 
'tis  called  zeal  —  a  flaming  edge  of  the  affection  —  the 
ruddy  complexion  of  the  soul."  Closely  connected  with 
this  temperament,  and  with  a  certain  keen  sensation  of 
truth,  rather  than  a  perception  of  it,  if  we  may  so  ex- 
press ourselves,  an  intense  consciousness  of  objective 
reality, —  was  his  simple  animating  faith.  He  had  faith 
in  God  —  faith  in  human  nature  —  faith,  if  we  may  say 
so,  in  his  own  instincts  —  in  his  ideas  of  men  and  thinga 
—  in  himself;  and  the  result  was,  that  unhesitating  bear 


DR.  CHALMERS.  367 

ing  up  and  steering  right  onward  —  "  never  bating  one 
jot  of  heart  or  hope  "  so  characteristic  of  him.  He  had 
"  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for."  He  had  "  the  evi- 
dence of  things  not  seen." 

By  his  simplicity  we  do  not  mean  the  simplicity  of  the 
head  —  of  that  he  had  none  ;  he  was  eminently  shrewd 
and  knowing  —  more  so  than  many  thought ;  but  we 
refer  to  that  quality  of  the  heart  and  of  the  life,  ex- 
pressed by  the  words,  "  in  simplicity  a  child."  In  his 
own  words,  from  his  Daily  Readings, — 

"  When  a  child  is  filled  with  any  strong  emotion  by  a  surprising 
event  or  intelligence,  it  runs  to  discharge  it  on  others,  impatient  of 
their  sympathy;  and  it  marks,  I  fancy,  the  simplicity  and  greater 
naturalness  of  this  period  (Jacob's),  that  the  grown-up  men  and 
women  ran  to  meet  each  othej,  giving  way  to  their  first  impulses 
—  even  as  children  do." 

His  emotions  were  as  lively  as  a  child's,  and  he  ran 
to  discharge  them.  There  was  in  all  his  ways  a  cer- 
tain beautiful  unconsciousness  of  self —  an  outgoing  of 
the  whole  nature  that  we  see  in  children,  who  are  by 
learned  men  said  to  be  long  ignorant  of  the  Ego  — 
blessed  in  many  respects  in  their  ignorance  !  This  same 
Ego,  as  it  now  exists,  being  perhaps  part  of  "  the  fruit 
of  that  forbidden  tree  ; "  that  mere  knowledge  of  good 
as  well  as  of  evil,  which  our  great  mother  bought  for 
us  at  such  a  price.  In  this  meaning  of  the  word,  Dr 
Chalmers,  considering  the  size  of  his  understanding  — 
his  personal  eminence  —  his  dealings  with  the  world  — 
his  large  sympathies  —  his  scientific  knowledge  of  mind 
and  matter  —  his  relish  for  the  practical  details,  and 
for  the  spirit  of  public  business  —  was  quite  singular 
for  his  simplicity ;  and  taking  this  view  of  it,  there 
was  much  that  was  plain  and  natural  in  his  manner  of 


368  DR.  CHALMERS. 

thinking  and  acting,  which  otherwise  was  obscure,  and 
liable  to  be  misunderstood.  We  cannot  better  explain 
what  we  mean  than  by  giving  a  passage  from  Fene^ 
lon,  which  D'Alembert,  in  his  Eloge,  quotes  as  char- 
acteristic of  that  "sweet-souled"  prelate.  We  give  the 
passage  entire,  as  it  seems  to  us  to  contain  a  very 
beautiful,  and  by  no   means    commonplace  truth :  — 

"  F^n^lon,"  says  D'Alembert,  "  a  caracte>ise"  lui-meme  en  peu  de 
mots  cette  simplicity  qui  se  rendoit  si  cher  a  tous  les  coeurs,  'La 
simplicity  est  la  droiture  d'une  ame  qui  s'interdit  tout  retour  sur 
elle  et  sur  ses  actions  —  cette  vertu  est  diffe>ente  de  la  sinc£rit£,  et 
la  surpasse.  On  voit  beaucoup  de  gens  qui  sont  sinceres  sans  etre 
simples  —  lis  ne  veulent  passer  que  pour  ce  qu'ils  sont,  mais  ils 
craignent  sans  cesse  de  passer  pour  ce  qu'ils  ne  sont  pas.  L'homme 
simple  n'affecte  ni  la  vertu,  ni  la  verite"  meme;  il  n'est  jamais  oc- 
cupy de  lui,  il  semble  d'avoir  perdu  ce  moi  dont  on  est  si  jaloux.' " 

What  delicacy  and  justness  of  expression  !  how  true 
and  clear!  how  little  we  see  nowadays,  among  grown- 
up men,  of  this  straightness  of  the  soul  —  of  this  los- 
ing or  never  finding  "  ce  moi !  "  There  is  more  than 
is  perhaps  generally  thought  in  this.  Man  in  a  state  of 
perfection,  would  no  sooner  think  of  asking  himself  — 
am  I  right?  am  I  appearing  to  be  what  inwardly  I 
am?  than  the  eye  asks  itself — do  I  see?  or  a  child 
says  to  itself — do  I  love  my  mother?  We  have  lost 
this  instinctive  sense ;  we  have  set  one  portion  of  our- 
selves aside  to  watch  the  rest;  we  must  keep  up  ap- 
pearances and  our  consistency  ;  we  must  respect  —  that 
is,  look  back  upon  —  ourselves,  and  be  respected,  if 
possible ;  we  must,  by  hook  or  by  crook,  be  respect- 
able. 

Dr.  Chalmers  would  have  made  a  sorry  Balaam ;  he 
was  made  of  different  stuff,  and  for  other  purposes.  Your 
*  respectable  "  men  are  ever  doing  their  best  to  keep 


DR.  CHALMERS.  369 

their  status,  to  maintain  their  position.  He  never  troub- 
led himself  about  his  status  ;  indeed,  we  would  say  status 
was  not  the  word  for  him.  He  had  a  sedes  on  which 
he  sat,  and  from  which  he  spoke ;  he  had  an  imperium, 
to  and  fro  which  he  roamed  as  he  listed  ;  but  a  status 
was  as  little  in  his  way  as  in  that  of  a  Mauritanian 
lion.  Your  merely  "  sincere  "  men  are  always  thinking 
of  what  they  said  yesterday,  and  what  they  may  say  to- 
morrow, at  the  very  moment  when  they  should  be  put- 
ting their  whole  self  into  to-day.  Full  of  his  idea,  pos- 
sessed by  it,  moved  altogether  by  its  power,  —  believing, 
he  spoke,  and  without  stint  or  fear,  often  apparently 
contradicting  his  former  self — careless  about  everything, 
but  speaking  fully  his  mind.  One  other  reason  for  his 
apparent  inconsistencies  was,  if  one  may  so  express  it, 
the  spaciousness  of  his  nature.  He  had  room  in  that 
capacious  head,  and  affection  in  that  great,  hospitable 
heart,  for  relishing  and  taking  in  the  whole  range  of 
human  thought  and  feeling.  He  was  several  men  in 
one.  Multitudinous  but  not  multiplex,  in  him  odd  and 
apparently  incongruous  notions  dwelt  peaceably  together. 
The  lion  lay  down  with  the  lamb.  Voluntaryism  and 
an  endowment  —  both  were  best. 

He  was  childlike  in  his  simplicity ;  though  in  under- 
standing a  man,  he  was  himself  in  many  things  a  child. 
Coleridge  says,  every  man  should  include  all  his  former 
selves  in  his  present,  as  a  tree  has  its  former  years' 
growths  inside  its  last ;  so  Dr.  Chalmers  bore  along  with 
him  his  childhood,  his  youth,  his  early  and  full  man- 
hood into  his  mature  old  age.  This  gave  himself,  we 
doubt  not,  infinite  delight — multiplied  his  joys,  strength- 
ened and  sweetened  his  whole  nature,  and  kept  his 
heart  young  and  tender ;  it  enabled  him  to  sympathize, 
24 


370  DE.   CHALMERS. 

to  have  a  fellow-feeling  with  all,  of  whatever  age. 
Those  who  best  knew  him,  who  were  most  habitually 
with  him,  know  how  beautifully  this  point  of  his  char- 
acter shone  out  in  daily,  hourly  life.  We  well  re- 
member long  ago  loving  him  before  we  had   seen    him 

—  from  our  having  been  told,  that  being  out  one 
Saturday  at  a  friend's  house  near  the  Pentlands,  he 
collected  all  the  children  and  small  people  —  the  other 
bairns,  as  he  called  them  —  and  with  no  one  else  of 
his  own  growth,  took   the   lead    to   the   nearest  hill-top, 

—  how  he  made  each  take  the  biggest  and  roundest 
stone  he  could  find,  and  carry,  —  how  he  panted  up  the 
hill  himself  with  one  of  enormous  size,  —  how  he  kept 
up  their  hearts,  and  made  them  shout  with  glee,  with 
the  light  of  his  countenance,  and  with  all  his  pleasant 
and  strange  ways  and  words,  —  how  having  got  the 
breathless  little  men  and  women  to  the  top  of  the  hill, 
he,  hot  and  scant  of  breath  —  looked  round  on  the  world 
and  upon  them  with  his  broad  benignant  smile  like  the 
avrjptOfjiov  kv/jloltcdv  yeXaafxa  —  the  unnumbered  laughter 
of  the  sea,  —  how  he  set  off  his  own  huge  "  fellow,"  — 
how  he  watched  him  setting  out  on  his  race,  slowly, 
stupidly,  vaguely  at  first,  almost  as  if  he  might  die  be- 
fore he  began  to  live,  then  suddenly  giving  a  spring  and 
off  like  a  shot  —  bounding,  tearing,  avrts  eVeim  7re8ov8e 
KvXcvSeTo  Aaa?  a.vat8t]s,  vires  acquirens  eundo ;  how  the 
great  and  good  man  was  totus  in  illo  ;  how  he  spoke 
to,  upbraided  him,  cheered  him,  gloried  in  him,  all  but 
prayed  for  him,  —  how  he  joked  philosophy  to  his  won- 
dering and  ecstatic  crew,  when  he  (the  stone)  disap- 
peared among  some  brackens  —  telling  them  they  had 
the,  evidence  of  their  senses  that  he  was  in,  they  might 
even  know  he  was  there  by  his  effects,  by  the  moving 


DR.  CHALMERS.  371 

brackens,  himself  unseen  ;  how  plain  it  became  that  he 
had  gone  in,  when  he  actually  came  out !  —  how  he  ran 
up  the  opposite  side  a  bit,  and  then  fell  back,  and  lazily 
expired  at  the  bottom,  —  how  to  their  astonishment, 
but  not  displeasure  —  for  he  "  set  them  off  so  well,"  and 
•'  was  so  funny" — he  took  from  each  his  cherished  stone, 
and  set  it  off  himself!  showing  them  how  they  all  ran 
alike,  yet  differently  ;  how  he  went  on,  "  making,"  as 
he  said,  "  an  induction  of  particulars,"  till  he  came  to 
the  Benjamin  of  the  flock,  a  wee  wee  man,  who  had 
brought  up  a  stone  bigger  than  his  own  big  head ;  then 
how  he  let  him,  unicus  omnium,  set  off  his  own,  and 
how  wonderfully  it  ran  !  what  miraculous  leaps  !  what 
escapes  from  impossible  places  !  and  how  it  ran  up  the 
other  side  farther  than  any,  and  by  some  felicity  re- 
mained there. 

He  was  an  orator  in  its  specific  and  highest  sense. 
We  need  not  prove  this  to  those  who  have  heard  him  ; 
we  cannot  to  those  who  have  not.  It  was  a  living  man 
sending  living,  burning  words  into  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  men  before  him,  radiating  his  intense  fervor  upon  them 
all ;  but  there  was  no  reproducing  the  entire  effect  when 
alone  and  cool ;  some  one  of  the  elements  was  gone.  We 
say  nothing  of  this  part  of  his  character,  because  upon 
this  all  are  agreed.  His  eloquence  rose  like  a  tide,  a 
sea,  setting  in,  bearing  down  upon  you,  lifting  up  all  its 
waves  —  "  deep  calling  unto  deep  ;  "  there  was  no  doing 
anything  but  giving  yourself  up  for  the  time  to  its  will. 
Do  our  readers  remember  Horace's  description  of  Pin- 
dar ? 

"  Monte  decurrens  velut  amnis,  imbres 
Quem  super  notas  aluere  ripas, 


872  DR.   CHALMERS. 

Fervet,  immensusque  ruit  profundo 
Pindarus  ore: 

'  per  audaces  nova  dithyrambos 

Verba  devolvit,  numerisque  fertur 
Lege  solutis.' " 

This  is  to  our  mind  singularly  characteristic  of  our  per 
fervid  Scotsman.  If  we  may  indulge  our  conceit  we 
would  paraphrase  it  thus.  His  eloquence  was  like  a 
flooded  Scottish  river,  —  it  had  its  origin  in  some  ex- 
alted region  —  in  some  mountain-truth  —  some  high,  im- 
mutable reality ;  it  did  not  rise  in  a  plain,  and  quietly 
drain  its  waters  to  the  sea,  —  it  came  sheer  down  from 
above.  He  laid  hold  of  some  simple  truth  —  the  love 
of  God,  the  Divine  method  of  justification,  the  unchange- 
ableness  of  human  nature,  the  supremacy  of  conscience, 
the  honorableness  of  all  men  ;  and  having  got  this  viv- 
idly before  his  mind,  on  he  moved  —  the  river  rose  at 
once,  drawing  everything  into  its  course  — 

"  All  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  desires,  — 
Whatever  stirs  this  mortal  frame," 

things  outward  and  things  inward,  interests  immediate 
and  remote  —  God  and  eternity  —  men,  miserable  and 
immortal  —  this  world  and  the  next  —  clear  light  and 
unsearchable  mystery  —  the  word  and  the  works  of  God 
■ —  everything  contributed  to  swell  the  volume  and  add 
to  the  onward  and  widening  flood.  His  river  did  not 
flow  like  Denham's  Thames,  — 

"  Though  deep  yet  clear,  though  gentle  yet  not  dull ; 
Strong  without  rage,  without  o'erflowing  full." 

There  was  strength,  but  there  was  likewise  rage;  a 
fine  frenzy  —  not  unoften  due  mainly  to  its  rapidity  and 
to  its  being  raised  suddenly  by  his  affections ;  there  was 


DR.   CHALMERS.  373 

some  confusion  in  the  stream  of  his  thoughts,  some  over- 
flowing of  the  banks,  some  turbulence,  and  a  certain 
noble  immensity ;  but  its  origin  was  clear  and  calm, 
above  the  region  of  clouds  and  storms.  If  you  saw  it ; 
if  you  took  up  and  admitted  his  proposition,  his  starting 
idea,  then  all  else  moved  on  ;  but  once  set  a-going,  once 
on  his  way,  there  was  no  pausing  to  inquire,  why  or 
how  — fervet  —  ruit  — fertur,  he  boils  —  he  rushes  — 
he  is  borne  along ;  and  so  are  all  who  hear  him. 

To  go  on  with  our  figure  —  There  was  no  possibility 
of  sailing  up  his  stream.  You  must  go  with  him,  or  you 
must  go  ashore.  This  was  a  great  peculiarity  with  him, 
and  puzzled  many  people.  You  could  argue  with  him, 
and  get  him  to  entertain  your  ideas  on  any  purely  ab- 
stract or  simple  proposition,  —  at  least  for  a  time  ;  but 
once  let  him  get  down  among  practicals,  among  appli- 
cations of  principles,  into  the  regions  of  the  affections 
and  active  powers,  and  such  was  the  fervor  and  impet- 
uosity of  his  nature,  that  he  could  not  stay  leisurely  to 
discuss,  he  could  not  then  entertain  the  opposite  ;  it  was 
hurried  off,  and  made  light  of,  and  disregarded,  like  a 
floating  thing  before  a  cataract. 

To  play  a  little  more  with  our  conceit  —  The  greatest 
man  is  he  who  is  both  born  and  made  —  who  is  at  once 
poetical  and  scientific  —  who  has  genius  and  talent  — 
each  supporting  the  other.  So  with  rivers.  Your 
mighty  world's  river  rises  in  high  and  lonely  places, 
among  the  everlasting  hills  ;  amidst  clouds,  or  inacces- 
sible clearness.  On  he  moves,  gathering  to  himself  all 
waters  ;  refreshing,  cheering  all  lands.  Here  a  cataract, 
there  a  rapid ;  now  lingering  in  some  corner  of  beauty, 
as  if  loath  to  go.  Now  shallow  and  wide,  rippling  and 
laughing  in  his  glee ;  now  deep,  silent,  and  slow :  now 


374  dr.  Chalmers. 

narrow  and  rapid  and  deep,  and  not  to  be  meddled  with. 
Now  in  the  open  country  ;  not  so  clear,  for  other  waters 
have  come  in  upon  him,  and  he  is  becoming  useful,  no 
longer  turbulent,  —  travelling  more  contentedly  ;  now 
he  is  navigable,  craft  of  all  kinds  coming  and  going 
upon  his  surface  forever ;  and  then,  as  if  by  some  gentle 
and  great  necessity,  "  deep  and  smooth,  passing  with  a 
still  foot  and  a  sober  face,"  he  pays  his  last  tribute  to 
"  the  Fiscus,  the  great  Exchequer,  the  sea,"  —  running 
out  fresh,  by  reason  of  his  power  and  volume,  into  the 
main  for  many  a  league. 

Your  mere  genius,  who  has  instincts,  and  is  poetical 
and  not  scientific,  who  grows  from  within  —  he  is  like 
our  mountain  river,  clear,  wilful,  odd ;  running  round 
corners ;  disappearing  it  may  be  under  ground,  coming 
up  again  quite  unexpectedly  and  strong,  as  if  fed  from 
some  unseen  spring,  deep  down  in  darkness ;  rising  in 
flood  without'warning,  and  coming  down  like  a  lion  ; 
often  all  but  dry ;  never  to  be  trusted  to  for  driving 
mills ;  must  at  least  be  tamed  and  led  off  to  the  mill ; 
and  going  down  full  pace,  and  without  stop  or  stay,  into 
the  sea. 

Your  man  of  talent,  of  acquirements,  of  science  —  who 
is  made,  —  who  is  not  so  much  educed  as  edified ;  who, 
instead  of  acquiring  his  vires  eundo,  gets  his  vires  eundi, 
from  acquirement,  and  grows  from  without ;  who  serves 
his  brethren  and  is  useful ;  he  rises  often  no  one  knows 
where  or  cares  ;  has  perhaps  no  proper  fountain  at  all, 
but  is  the  result  of  the  gathered  rain-water  in  the  higher 
flats  ;  he  is  never  quite  clear,  never  brisk,  never  dan- 
gerous ;  always  from  the  first  useful,  and  goes  pleasantly 
in  harness  ;  turns  mills  ;  washes  rags  —  makes  them  into 
paper ;  carries  down  all  manner  of  dye-stuffs  and  fecu- 


DR.  CHALMERS.  375 

lence  ;  and  turns  a  bread-mill  to  as  good  purpose  as  any 
clearer  stream  ;  is  docile,  and  has,  as  he  reaches  the  sea, 
in  his  dealings  with  the  world,  a  river  trust,  who  look 
after  his  and  their  own  interests,  and  dredge  him,  and 
deepen  him,  and  manage  him,  and  turn  him  off  into 
docks,  and  he  is  in  the  sea  before  he  or  you  know  it. 

Though  we  do  not  reckon  the  imagination  of  Dr. 
Chalmers  among  his  master  faculties,  it  was  powerful, 
effective,  magnificent.  It  did  not  move  him,  he  took  it  up 
as  he  went  along ;  its  was  not  that  imperial,  penetrating, 
transmuting  function  that  we  find  it  in  Dante,  in  Jeremy 
Taylor,  in  Milton,  or  in  Burke ;  he  used  it  to  emblazon 
his  great  central  truths,  to  hang  clouds  of  glory  on  the 
skirts  of  his  illustration  ;  but  it  was  too  passionate,  too 
material,  too  encumbered  with  images,  too  involved  in 
the  general  melee  of  the  soul,  to  do  its  work  as  a  master. 
It  was  not  in  him,  as  Thomas  Fuller  calls  it,  "  that  in- 
ward sense  of  the  soul,  its  most  boundless  and  restless 
faculty  ;  for  while  the  understanding  and  the  will  are 
kept  as  it  were  in  libera  enstodid  to  their  objects  of 
verum  et  bonam,  it  is  free  from  all  engagements  —  digs 
without  spade,  flies  without  wings,  builds  without  charges, 
in  a  moment  striding  from  the  centre  to  the  circumfer- 
ence of  the  world  by  a  kind  of  omnipotency,  creating 
and  annihilating  things  in  an  instant  —  restless,  ever 
working,  never  wearied."  We  may  say,  indeed,  that 
men  of  his  temperament  are  not  generally  endowed  with 
this  power  in  largest  measure  ;  in  one  sense  they  can  do 
without  it,  in  another  they  want  the  conditions  on  which 
its  highest  exercise  depends.  Plato  and  Milton,  Shak- 
Bpeare  and  Dante,  and  "Wordsworth,  had  imaginations 
tranquil,    sedate,   cool,  originative,   penetrative,    intense, 


376  DR.   CHALMERS. 

which  dwelt  in  the  "  highest  heaven  of  invention." 
Hence  it  was  that  Chalmers  could  personify  or  paint 
a  passion  ;  he  could  give  it  in  one  of  its  actions ;  he 
could  not,  or  rather  he  never  did  impassionate,  create, 
and  vivify  a  person  —  a  very  different  thing  from  per- 
sonifying a  passion  —  all  the  difference,  as  Henry  Taylor 
says,  between  Byron  and  Shakspeare. 

In  his  impetuosity,  we  find  the  rationale  of  much  that 
h  peculiar  in  the  style  of  Dr.  Chalmers.  As  a  spoken 
style  it  was  thoroughly  effective.1     He  seized  the  nearest 

1  We  have  not  noticed  his  iterativeness,  his  reiterativeness,  because 
it  flowed  naturally  from  his  primary  qualities.  In  speaking  it  was 
effective,  and  to  us  pleasing,  because  there  was  some  new  modulation, 
some  addition  in  the  manner,  just  as  the  sea  never  sets  up  one  wave 
exactly  like  the  last  or  the  next.  But  in  his  books  it  did  somewhere 
encumber  his  thoughts,  and  the  reader's  progress  and  profit.  It  did 
not  arise,  as  in  many  lesser  men,  from  his  having  said  his  say  —  from 
his  having  no  more  in  him;  much  less  did  it  arise  from  conceit,  either 
of  his  idea  or  of  his  way  of  stating  it;  but  from  the  intensity  with 
which  the  sensation  of  the  idea  —  if  we  may  use  the  expression  — 
made  its  first  mark  on  his  mind.  Truth  to  hiin  never  seemed  to  lose 
its  first  freshness,  its  edge,  its  flavor;  and  Divine  truth,  we  know,  had 
come  to  him  so  suddenly,  so  fully,  at  mid-day,  when  he  was  in  the 
very  prime  of  his  knowledge  and  his  power  and  quickness  —  had  so 
possessed  his  entire  nature,  as  if,  like  him  who  was  journeying  to 
Damascus,  a  Great  Light  had  shone  round  about  him  —  that  whenever 
he  reproduced  that  condition,  he  began  afresh,  and  with  his  whole 
utterance,  to  proclaim  it.  He  could  not  but  speak  the  things  he  had 
seen  and  felt,  and  heard  and  believed;  and  he  did  it  much  in  the  same 
way,  and  in  the  same  words,  for  the  thoughts  and  affections  and  pos- 
ture of  his  soul  were  the  same.  Like  all  men  of  vivid  perception  and 
keen  sensibility,  his  mind  and  his  body  continued  under  impressions, 
both  material  and  spiritual,  after  the  objects  were  gone.  A  curious 
instance  of  this  occurs  to  us.  Some  years  ago,  he  roamed  up  and 
down  through  the  woods  near  Auchindinny,  with  two  boys  as  com- 
oanions.  It  was  the  first  burst  of  summer,  and  the  trees  were  more 
than  usually  enriched  with  leaves.  He  wandered  about  delighted, 
silent,  looking  at  the  leaves,  "thick  and  numberless."  As  the  three 
went  on,  they  came  suddenly  upon  a  nigh  brick  wall,  newly  built,  for 


DR.  CHALMERS.  377 

weapons,  and  smote  down  whatever  he  hit.  But  from 
this  very  vehemence,  this  haste,  there  was  in  his  general 
style  a  want  of  correctness,  of  selectness,  of  nicety,  of 
that  curious  felicity  which  makes  thought  immortal,  and 
enshrines  it  in  imperishable  crystal.  In  the  language  of 
the  affections  he  was  singularly  happy  ;  but  in  a  formal 
statement,  rapid  argumentation  and  analysis,  he  was  often 
as  we  might  think,  uncouth,  and  imperfect,  and  incorrect : 
chiefly  owing  to  his  temperament,  to  his  fiery,  impatient, 
swelling  spirit,  this  gave  his  orations  their  fine  audacity 

—  this  brought  out  hot  from  the  furnace,  his  new  words 

—  this  made  his  numbers  run  wild  —  lege  solutis.  We 
are  sure  this  view  will  be  found  confirmed  by  these 
"  Daily  Readings,"  when  he  wrote  little,  and  had  not 
time  to  get  heated,  and  when  the  nature  of  the  work,  the 
hour  at  which  it  was  done,  and  his  solitariness,  made  his 
thoughts  flow  at  their  "  own  sweet  will ;  "  they  are  often 
quite  as  classical  in  expression,  as  they  are  deep  arid 
lucid  in  thought  —  reflecting  heaven  with  its  clouds  and 
stars,  and  letting  us  see  deep  down  into  its  own  secret 
depths :  this  is  to  us  one  great  charm  of  these  volumes. 
Here  he  is  broad  and  calm ;  in  his  great  public  per- 
formances by  mouth  and  pen,  he  soon  passed  from  the 
lucid  into  the  luminous. 

What,  for  instance,  can  be  finer  in   expression   than 
this  ?     "  It  is  well  to  be  conversant  with  great  elements 

—  life  and  death,  reason  and  madness."  "  God  forgets 
not  his  own  purposes,  though  he  executes  them  in  his 

peach-trees,  not  yet  planted.  Dr.  Chalmers  halted,  and  looking  stead- 
fastly at  the  wall,  exclaimed  most  earnestly,  "What  foliage!  what 
foliage!  "  The  boys  looked  at  one  another,  and  said  nothing;  but  on 
getting  home,  expressed  their  astonishment  at  this  very  puzzling  phe- 
nomenon. What  a  difference!  leaves  and  parallelograms;  a  forest 
and  a  brick  wall! 


378  DR.   CHALMERS. 

own  way,  and  maintains  his  own  pace,  which  he  has- 
tens not  and  shortens  not  to  meet  our  impatience."  "  I 
find  it  easier  to  apprehend  the  greatness  of  The  Deity 
than  any  of  his  moral  perfections,  or  his  sacredness  ; " 
and  this  — 

"  One  cannot  but  feel  an  interest  in  Ishmael,  figuring  him  to  be  a 
noble  of  nature  —  one  of  those  heroes  of  the  wilderness  who  lived  on 
the  produce  of  his  bow,  and  whose  spirit  was  nursed  and  exercised 
among  the  wild  adventures  of  the  life  he  led.  And  it  does  soften  our 
conception  of  him  whose  hand  was  against  every  man,  and  every 
man's  hand  against  him,  when  we  read  of  his  mother's  influence  over 
him,  in  the  deference  of  Ishmael  to  whom  we  read  another  example 
of  the  respect  3'ielded  to  females  even  in  that  so-called  barbarous 
period  of  the  world.  There  was  a  civilization,  the  immediate  effect 
of  religion,  in  these  days,  from  which  men  fell  away  as  the  world 
grew  older." 

That  he  had  a  keen  relish  for  material  and  moral 
beauty  and  grandeur  we  all  know  ;  what  follows  shows 
that  he  had  also  the  true  ear  for  beautiful  words,  as  at 
once  pleasant  to  the  ear  and  suggestive  of  some  higher 
feelings :  —  "I  have  often  felt,  in  reading  Milton  and 
Thomson,  a  strong  poetical  effect  in  the  bare  enumera- 
tion of  different  countries,  and  this  strongly  enhanced  by 
the  statement  of  some  common  and  prevailing  emotion, 
which  passed  from  one  to  another."  This  is  set  forth 
with  great  beauty  and  power  in  verses  14th  and  15th  of 
Exodus  xv.,  —  "  The  people  shall  hear  and  be  afraid  — 
sorrow  shall  take  hold  on  the  inhabitants  of  Palestina. 
Then  the  dukes  of  Edom  shall  be  amazed  —  the  mighty 
men  of  Moab,  trembling  shall  take  hold  of  them  —  the 
inhabitants  of  Canaan  shall  melt  away."  Any  one  who 
has  a  tolerable  ear  and  any  sensibility,  must  remember 
the  sensation  of  delight  in  the  mere  sound  —  like  the 
colors  of  a  butterfly's  wing,  or  the  shapeless  glories  of 


DR.  CHALMERS.  379 

evening  clouds,  to  the  eye  —  in  reading  aloud  such  pas- 
sages as  these  :  "  Heshbon  shall  cry  and  Elealeh  —  their 
voice  shall  be  heard  to  Jabez  —  for  by  the  way  of  Luhith 
with  weeping  shall  they  go  it  up  —  for  in  the  way  of 
Horonaim  they  shall  raise  a  cry.  God  came  from 
Teman,  the  Holy  One  from  Mount  Paran.  Is  not  Calno 
as  Carchemish  ?  is  not  Hamath  as  Arpad  ?  is  not  Sa- 
maria as  Damascus  ?  He  is  gone  to  Aiath,  he  is  passed 
to  Migron  ;  at  Michmash  he  hath  laid  up  his  carriages  : 
Ramath  is  afraid  ;  Gibeah  of  Saul  is  fled  —  Lift  up  thy 
voice,  0  daughter  of  Gallim  :  cause  it  to  be  heard  unto 
Laish,  0  poor  Anathoth.  Madmenah  is  removed ;  the 
inhabitants  of  Gebim  gather  themselves  to  flee.  The 
fields  of  Heshbon  languish  —  the  vine  of  Sibmah  —  I 
will  water  thee  with  my  tears,  0  Heshbon  and  Elealeh." 
Any  one  may  prove  to  himself  that  much  of  the  effect 
and  beauty  of  these  passages  depends  on  these  names ; 
put  others  in  their  room,  and  try  them. 

We  remember  well  our  first  hearing  Dr.  Chalmers. 
"We  were  in  a  moorland  district  in  Tweeddale,  rejoicing 
in  the  country,  after  nine  months  of  the  High  School. 
"We  heard  that  the  famous  preacher  was  to  be  at  a  neigh- 
boring parish  church,  and  off  we  set,  a  cartful  of  irre- 
pressible youngsters.  "  Calm  was  all  nature  as  a  resting 
wheel."  The  crows,  instead  of  making  wing,  were  im- 
pudent and  sat  still ;  the  cart-horses  were  standing,  know- 
ing the  day,  at  the  field-gates,  gossiping  and  gazing,  idle 
and  happy  ;  the  moor  was  stretching  away  in  the  pale 
sunlight  —  vast,  dim,  melancholy,  like  a  sea ;  every- 
where were  to  be  seen  the  gathering  people,  "  sprink 
lings  of  blithe  company ; "  the  country-side  seemed 
moving  to  one  centre.  As  we  entered  the  kirk  we 
saw  a  notorious  character,  a  drover,  who  had  much  of 


380  DR.  CHALMERS. 

the  brutal  look  of  what  he  worked  in,  with  tie  knowing 
eye  of  a  man  of  the  city,  a  sort  of  big  Peter  Bell  — 

"  He  had  a  hardness  in  his  eye, 
He  had  a  hardness  in  his  cheek." 

He  was  our  terror,  and  we  not  only  wondered,  but  were 
afraid  when  we  saw  him  going  in.  The  kirk  was  full  as 
it  could  hold.  How  different  in  looks  to  a  brisk  town 
congregation  !  There  was  a  fine  leisureliness  and  vague 
stare ;  all  the  dignity  and  vacancy  of  animals  ;  eyebrows 
raised  and  mouths  open,  as  is  the  habit  with  those  who 
speak  little  and  look  much,  and  at  far-off  objects.  The 
minister  comes  in,  homely  in  his  dress  and  gait,  but  hav- 
ing a  great  look  about  him,  like  a  mountain  among  hills. 
The  High  School  boys  thought  him  like  a  "  big  one  of 
ourselves,"  he  looks  vaguely  round  upon  his  audience,  as 
if  he  saw  in  it  one  great  object,  not  many.  We  shall 
never  forget  his  ^inile  !  its  general  benignity  ;  —  how  he 
let  the  light  of  his  countenance  fall  on  us  !  He  read  a 
few  verses  quietly ;  then  prayed  briefly,  solemnly,  with 
his  eyes  wide  open  all  the  time,  but  not  seeing.  Then 
he  gave  out  his  text ;  we  forget  it,  but  its  subject  was, 
•'  Death  reigns."  He  stated  slowly,  calmly,  the  simple 
meaning  of  the  words  ;  what  death  was,  and  how  and 
why  it  reigned  ;  then  suddenly  he  started,  and  looked 
like  a  man  who  had  seen  some  great  sight,  and  was 
breathless  to  declare  it ;  he  told  us  how  death  reigned  — 
everywhere,  at  all  times,  in  all  places  ;  how  we  all  knew 
it,  how  we  would  yet  know  more  of  it.  The  drover, 
who  had  sat  down  in  the  table-seat  opposite,  was  gazing 
up  in  a  state  of  stupid  excitement ;  he  seemed  restless, 
but  never  kept  his  eye  from  the  speaker.  The  tide  set 
in  —  everything  added  to  its  power,  deep  called  to  deep, 


DR.  CHALMERS.  381 

imagery  and  illustration  poured  in ;  and  every  now  and 
then  the  theme,  —  the  simple,  terrible  statement,  was 
repeated  in  some  lucid  interval.  After  overwhelming 
us  with  proofs  of  the  reign  of  Death,  and  transferring 
to  us  his  intense  urgency  and  emotion  ;  and  after  shriek- 
ing, as  if  in  despair,  these  words,  "  Death  is  a  tremen- 
dous necessity,"  —  he  suddenly  looked  beyond  us  as  if 
into  some  distant  region,  and  cried  out,  "  Behold  a 
mightier  !  —  who  is  this  ?  He  cometh  from  Edom, 
with  dyed  garments  from  Bozrah,  glorious  in  his  ap- 
parel, speaking  in  righteousness,  travelling  in  the  great- 
ness of  his  strength,  mighty  to  save."  Then,  in  a  few 
plain  sentences,  he  stated  the  truth  as  to  sin  entering, 
and  death  by  sin,  and  death  passing  upon  all.  Then 
he  took  fire  once  more,  and  enforced,  with  redoubled 
energy  and  richness,  the  freeness,  the  simplicity,  the 
security,  the  sufficiency  of  the  great  method  of  justifi- 
cation. How  astonished  and  impressed  we  all  were ! 
He  was  at  the  full  thunder  of  his  power ;  the  whole 
man  was  in  an  agony  of  earnestness.  The  drover  was 
weeping  like  a  child,  the  tears  running  down  his  ruddy, 
coarse  cheeks  —  his  face  opened  out  and  smoothed  like 
an  infant's ;  his  whole  body  stirred  with  emotion.  We 
all  had  insensibly  been  drawn  out  of  our  seats,  and  were 
converging  towards  the  wonderful  speaker.  And  when 
he  sat  down,  after  warning  each  one  of  us  to  remember 
who  it  was,  and  what  it  was,  that  followed  death  on  his 
pale  horse,1  and  how  alone  we  could  escape  —  we  all 
sunk  back  into  our  seats.  How  beautiful  to  our  eyes 
did  the  thunderer  look  —  exhausted  —  but  sweet  and 
pure !     How  he  poured  out  his  soul  before  his  God  in 

1  "  And  I  looked,  and  behold,  a  pale  horse ;  and  his  name  that  sat  on 
him  was  Death,  and  Hell  followed  with  him."  — Rev.  vi.  8. 


382  DR.   CHALMERS. 

giving   thanks    for    sending   the    Abolieher   of    Death ! 
Then,  a  short  psalm,  and  all  was  ended. 

"We  went  home  quieter  than  we  came  ;  we  did  not 
recount  the  foals  with  their  long  legs,  and  roguish  eyes, 
and  their  sedate  mothers  ;  we  did  not  speculate  upon 
whose  dog  that  was,  and  whether  that  was  a  crow  or 
a  man  in  the  dim  moor,  —  we  thought  of  other  things. 
That  voice,  that  face;  those  great,  simple,  living  thoughts 
those  floods  of  resistless  eloquence  ;  that  piercing,  shatter- 
ing voice,  —  "  that  tremendous  necessity." 

Were  we  desirous  of  giving  to  one  who  had  never 
seen  or  heard  Dr.  Chalmers  an  idea  of  what  manner 
of  man  he  was  —  what  he  was  as  a  whole,  in  the  full 
round  of  his  notions,  tastes,  affections,  and  powers  — 
we  would  put  this  book  into  their  hands,  and  ask  them 
to  read  it  slowly,  bit  by  bit,  as  he  wrote  it.  In  it  he 
puts  down  simply,  and  at  once,  what  passes  through  his 
mind  as  he  reads  ;  there  is  no  making  of  himself  feel 
and  think  —  no  getting  into  a  frame  of  mind ;  he  was 
not  given  to  frames  of  mind  ;  he  preferred  states  to 
forms  —  substances  to  circumstances.  There  is  something 
of  everything  in  it  —  his  relish  for  abstract  thought  — 
his  love  of  taking  soundings  in  deep  places  and  finding 
no  bottom  —  his  knack  of  starting  subtle  questions,  which 
he  lid  not  care  to  run  to  earth  —  his  penetrating,  regu- 
lating godliness  —  his  delight  in  nature  —  his  turn  for 
politics,  general,  economical,  and  ecclesiastical  —  his 
picturesque  eye  —  his  humanity  —  his  courtesy  —  his 
warm-heartedness  — his  impetuosity —  his  sympathy  with 
all  the  wants,  pleasures,  and  sorrows  of  his  kind  —  his 
delight  in  the  law  of  God,  and  his  simple,  devout,  manly 
treatment  of  it  —  his  acknowledgment  of  difficulties  — 


DR.  CHALMERS.  383 

his  turn  for  the  sciences  of  quantity  and  number,  and  in- 
deed for  natural  science  and  art.  generally  —  his  shrewd- 
ness —  his  worldly  wisdom  —  his  genius  ;  all  these  come 
out  —  you  gather  them  like  fruit,  here  a  little,  and  there 
a  little.  He  goes  over  the  Bible,  not  as  a  philosopher, 
or  a  theologian,  or  a  historian,  or  a  geologist,  or  a  jurist, 
or  a  naturalist,  or  a  statist,  or  a  politician  —  picking  out 
all  that  he  wants,  and  a  great  deal  more  than  he  has  any 
business  with,  and  leaving  everything  else  as  barren  to 
his  reader  as  it  has  been  to  himself;  but  he  looks  abroad 
upon  his  Father's  word —  as  he  used  so  pleasantly  to  do 
on  his  world — as  a  man,  and  as  a  Christian  ;  he  submits 
himself  to  its  influences,  and  lets  his  mind  go  out  fully  and 
naturally  in  its  utterances.  It  is  this  which  gives  to  this 
work  all  the  charm  of  multitude  in  unity,  of  variety  in 
harmony ;  and  that  sort  of  unexpectedness  and  ease  of 
movement  which  we  see  everywhere  in  nature  and  in 
natural  men. 

Our  readers  will  find  in  these  delightful  Bible  Read- 
ings not  a  museum  of  antiquities,  and  curiosities,  and 
laborious  trifles  ;  nor  of  scientific  specimens,  analyzed 
to  the  last  degree,  all  standing  in  oi'der,  labelled  and 
useless.  They  will  not  find  in  it  an  armory  of  weapons 
for  fighting  with  and  destroying  their  neighbors.  They 
will  get  less  of  the  physic  of  controversy  than  of  the  diet 
of  holy  living.  They  will  find  much  of  what  Lord  Bacon 
desired,  when  he  said,  "  We  want  short,  sound,  and  judi- 
cious notes  upon  Scripture,  without  running  into  com- 
monplaces, pursuing  controversies,  or  reducing  those 
notes  to  artificial  method,  but  leaving  them  quite  loose 
and  native.  For  certainly,  as  those  wines  which  flow 
from  the  first  treading  of  the  grape  are  sweeter  and  bet- 
ter than  those  forced  out  by  the  press,  which  gives  them 


384  DR.   CHALMERS. 

the  roughness  of  the  husk  and  the  stone,  so  are  those 
doctrines  best  and  sweetest  which  flow  from  a  gentle 
crush  of  the  Scriptures,  and  are  not  wrung  into  contro- 
versies and  commonplaces."  They  will  find  it  as  a  large 
pleasant  garden ;  no  great  system ;  not  trim,  but  beauti- 
ful, and  in  which  there  are  things  pleasant  to  the  eye  as 
well  as  good  for  food  —  flowers  and  fruits,  and  a  few 
good,  esculent,  wholesome  roots.  There  are  Honesty, 
Thrift,  Eye-bright  (Euphrasy  that  cleanses  the  sight), 
Heart's-ease.  The  good  seed  in  abundance,  and  the 
strange  mystical  Passion-flower;  and  in  the  midst,  and 
seen  everywhere,  if  we  but  look  for  it,  the  Tree  of  Life, 
with  its  twelve  manner  of  fruits  —  the  very  leaves  of 
which  are  for  the  healing  of  the  nations.  And,  per- 
chance, when  they  take  their  walk  through  it  at  even- 
ing time,  or  at  "  the  sweet  hour  of  prime,"  they  may  see 
a  happy,  Avise,  beaming  old  man  at  his  work  there  — 
they  may  hear  -his  well-known  voice  ;  and  if  they  have 
their  spiritual  senses  exercised  as  they  ought,  they  will 
not  fail  to  see  by  his  side,  "  one  like  unto  the  Son  of 
Man." 


DR.    GEORGE    WILSON. 


as 


DR.  GEORGE  WILSON. 


^MONG  the  many  students  at  our  University 
who  some  two-and-twenty  years  ago  started 

A  on  the  great  race,  in  the  full  flush  of  youth 
x  and  health,  and  with  that  strong  hunger  for 
knowledge  which  only  the  young,  or  those  who  keep 
themselves  >  ever  know,  there  were  three  lads  —  Ed- 
ward Forbes,  Samuel  Brown,  and  George  Wilson  —  who 
soon  moved  on  to  the  front  and  took  the  lead.  They  are 
now  all  three  in  their  graves. 

No  three  minds  could  well  have  been  more  diverse  in 
constitution  or  bias ;  each  was  typical  of  a  generic  differ- 
ence from  the  others.  What  they  cordially  agreed  in, 
was  their  hunting  in  the  same  field  and  for  the  same 
game.  The  truth  about  this  visible  world,  and  all  that 
it  contains,  was  their  quarry.  This  one  thing  they  set 
themselves  to  do,  but  each  had  his  own  special  gift,  and 
took  his  own  road  —  each  had  his  own  special  choice  of 
instruments  and  means.  Any  one  man  combining  their 
essential  powers,  would  have  been  the  epitome  of  a 
natural  philosopher,  in  the  wide  sense  of  the  man  who 
would  master  the  philosophy  of  nature. 

Edward  Forbes,  who  bulks  largest  at  present,  and 
deservedly,  for  largeness  was  of  his  essence,  was  the 
observer  proper.     He  saw  everything  under  the  broad 


388  DR.  GEORGE  WILSON. 

and  searching  light  of  day,  white  and  uncolored,  and 
with  an  unimpassioned  eye.  What  he  was  after  were 
the  real  appearances  of  things ;  phenomena  as  such ;  all 
that  seems  to  be.  His  was  the  search  after  what  is,  over 
the  great  field  of  the  world.  He  was  in  the  best  sense 
a  natural  historian,  an  observer  and  recorder  of  what  is 
seen  and  of  what  goes  on,  and  not  less  of  what  has  been 
seen  and  what  has  gone  on,  in  this  wonderful .  historic 
earth  of  ours,  with  all  its  fulness.  He  was  keen,  exact, 
capacious,  —  tranquil  and  steady  in  his  gaze  as  Nature 
herself.  He  was,  thus  far,  kindred  to  Aristotle,  to  Pliny, 
Linnajus,  Cuvier,  and  Humboldt,  though  the  great  Ger- 
man, and  the  greater  Stagirite,  had  higher  and  deeper 
spiritual  insights  than  Edward  Forbes  ever  gave  signs  of. 
It  is  worth  remembering  that  Dr.  George  Wilson  was 
up  to  his  death  engaged  in  preparing  his  Memoir  and 
Remains  for  the  press.  Who  will  now  take  up  the  tale  ? 
Samuel  Brown  was,  so  to  speak,  at  the  opposite  pole  — 
rapid,  impatient,  fearless,  full  of  passion  and  imaginative 
power  —  desiring  to  divine  the  essences  rather  than  the 
appearances  of  things  —  in  search  of  the  what  chiefly  in 
order  to  question  it,  make  it  give  up  at  whatever  cost  the 
secret  of  its  why;  his  fiery,  projective,  subtile  spirit,  could 
not  linger  in  the  outer  fields  of  mere  observation,  though 
he  had  a  quite  rare  faculty  for  seeing  as  well  as  for  look- 
ing, which  latter  act,  however,  he  greatly  preferred  ;  but 
he  pushed  into  the  heart  and  inner  life  of  every  question, 
eager  to  evoke  from  it  the  very  secret  of  itself.  Forbes, 
as  we  have  said,  wandered  at  will,  and  with  a  settled 
purpose  and  a  fine  hunting  scent,  at  his  leisure,  and  free 
and  almost  indifferent,  over  the  ample  fields  —  happy  and 
joyous  and  full  of  work  —  unencumbered  with  theory 
or  with  wings,  for  he  cared  not  to  fly.     Samuel  Brown, 


DR.  GEORGE  WILSON.  389 

whose  wings  were  perhaps  sometimes  too  much  for  him, 
more  ambitious,  more  of  a  solitary  turn,  was  forever  climb- 
ing the  Mount  Sinais  and  Pisgahs  of  science,  to  speak 
with  Him  whose  haunt  they  were,  —  climbing  there  all 
alone  and  in  the  dark,  and  with  much  peril,  if  haply  he 
might  descry  the  break  of  day  and  the  promised  land ; 
or,  to  vary  the  figure,  diving  into  deep  and  not  undan- 
gerous  wells,  that  he  might  the  better  see  the  stars  at 
noon,  and  possibly  find  Her  who  is  said  to  lurk  there. 
He  had  more  of  Plato,  though  he  wanted  the  symmetry 
and  persistent  grandeur  of  the  son  of  Ariston.  He  was, 
perhaps,  liker  his  own  favorite  Kepler ;  such  a  man  in  a 
word  as  we  have  not  seen  since  Sir  Humphry  Davy, 
whom  in  many  things  he  curiously  resembled,  and  not 
the  least  is  this,  that  the  prose  of  each  was  more  poetical 
than  the  verse. 

His  fate  has  been  a  mournful  and  a  strange  one,  but 
he  knew  it,  and  encountered  it  with  a  full  knowledge  of 
what  it  entailed.  He  perilled  everything  on  his  theory  ; 
and  if  this  hypothesis  —  it  may  be  somewhat  prematurely 
uttered  to  the  world,  and  the  full  working  out  of  which, 
by  rigid  scientific  realization,  was  denied  him  by  yeara 
of  intense  and  incapacitating  suffering,  ending  only  in 
death,  but  the  "relevancy"  of  which,  to  use  the  happy 
expression  of  Dr.  Chalmers,  we  hold  him  to  have  proved, 
and  in  giving  a  glimpse  of  which,  he  showed,  we  firmly 
believe,  what  has  been  called  that  "  instinctive  grasp 
which  the  healthy  imagination  takes  of  possible  truth,"  — 
if  his  theory  of  the  unity  of  matter,  and  the  consequent 
transmutability  of  the  now  called  elementary  bodies,  were 
substantiated  in  the  lower  but  essential  platform  of  actual 
experiment,  this,  along  with  his  original  doctrine  of  atoms 
and  their  forces,  would  change  the  entire  face  of  chemis- 


390  DR.  GEORGE  WILSON. 

try,  and  make  a  Cosmos  where  now  there  is  endless  ag« 
glomeration  and  confusion,  —  would,  in  a  word,  do  for  th« 
science  of  the  molecular  constitution  of  matter  and  its 
laws  of  action  and  reaction  at  insensible  distances,  what 
Newton's  doctrine  of  gravitation  has  done  for  the  celestial 
dynamics.  For,  let  it  be  remembered,  that  the  highest 
speculation  and  proof  in  this  department  —  by  such  men 
as  Dumas,  Faraday,  and  William  Thomson,  and  others  — ■ 
points  in  this  direction ;  it  does  no  more  as  yet  perhaps 
than  point,  but  some  of  us  may  live  to  see  "  resurgam  " 
inscribed  over  Samuel  Brown's  untimely  grave,  and  ap- 
plied with  gratitude  and  honor  to  him  whose  eyes  closed 
in  darkness  on  the  one  great  object  of  his  life,  and  the 
hopes  of  whose  "  unaccomplished  years  "  lie  buried  with 
him. 

Very  different  from  either,  though  worthy  of  and 
capable  of  relishing  much  that  was  greatest  and  best  in 
both,  was  he  whom  we  all  loved  and  mourn,  and  who, 
this  day  week,  was  carried  by  such  a  multitude  of 
mourners  to  that  grave,  which  to  his  eye  had  been  open 
and  ready  for  years. 

George  Wilson  was  born  in  Edinburgh  in  1818.  His 
father,  Mr.  Archibald  Wilson,  was  a  wine  merchant,  and 
died  sixteen  years  ago;  his  mother,  Janet  Aitken,  still 
lives  to  mourn  and  to  remember  him,  and  she  will  agree 
with  us  that  it  is  sweeter  to  remember  him  than  to  have 
converse  with  the  rest.  Any  one  who  has  had  the  priv 
ilege  to  know  him,  and  to  enjoy  his  bright  and  rich  and 
beautiful  mind,  will  not  need  to  go  far  to  learn  where  it 
was  that  her  son  George  got  all  of  that  genius  and  worth 
and  delightfulness  which  is  transmissible.  She  verifies 
what  is  so  often  and  so  truly  said  of  the  mothers  of  re- 
markable men.     She  was  his  first  and  best  Alma  Mater 


DR.  GEORGE  WILSON.  391 

and  in  many  senses  his  last,  for  her  influence  over  him 
continued  through  life.  George  had  a  twin  brother,  who 
died  in  early  life ;  and  we  cannot  help  referring  to  his 
being  one  of  twins,  something  of  that  wonderful  power 
of  attaching  himself,  and  being  personally  loved,  which 
was  one  of  his  strongest  as  it  was  one  of  his  most  win- 
ning powers.  He  was  always  fond  of  books,  and  of  fun, 
the  play  of  the  mind.  He  left  the  High  School  at  fif- 
teen and  took  to  medicine ;  but  he  soon  singled  out  chem- 
istry, and,  under  the  late  Kenneth  Kemp,  and  our  own 
distinguished  Professor  of  Materia  Medica,  himself  a 
first-class  chemist,  he  acquired  such  knowledge  as  to  be- 
come assistant  in  the  laboratory  of  Dr.  Thomas  Graham, 
now  Master  of  the  Mint,  and  then  Professor  of  Chem- 
istry in  University  College.  So  he  came  out  of  a  thor- 
ough and  good  school,  and  had  the  best  of  masters. 

He  then  took  the  degree  of  M.  D.,  and  became  a  Lec- 
turer in  Chemistry,  in  what  is  now  called  the  extra-aca- 
demical school  of  medicine,  but  which  in  our  day  was 
satisfied  with  the  title  of  private  lecturers.  He  became 
at  once  a  great  favorite,  and,  had  his  health  and  strength 
enabled  him,  he  would  have  been  long  a  most  success- 
ful and  popular  teacher ;  but  general  feeble  health,  and 
a  disease  in  the  ankle-joint  requiring  partial  amputation 
of  the  foot,  and  recurrent  attacks  of  a  serious  kind  in  his 
lungs,  made  his  life  of  public  teaching  one  long  and  sad 
trial.  How  nobly,  how  sweetly,  how  cheerily  he  bore 
all  these  long  baffling  years ;  how  his  bright,  active,  ar- 
dent, unsparing  soul  lorded  it  over  his  frail  but  willing 
body,  making  it  do  more  than  seemed  possible,  and  as 
it  were  by  sheer  force  of  will  ordering  it  to  live  longer 
than  was  in  it  to  do,  those  who  lived  with  him  and  wit- 
nessed this  triumph  of  spirit  over  matter,  will  not  soon 


392  DR.  GEORGE  WILSON. 

forget.     It  was  a  lesson  to  every  one  of  what  true  good 
ness  of  nature,  elevated  and  cheered  by  the  highest  and 
happiest  of  all  motives,  can  make  a  man  endure,  achieve, 
and  enjoy. 

As  is  well  known,  Dr.  Wilson  was  appointed  in  1855 
to  the  newly-constituted  Professorship  of  Technology, 
and  to  the  Curatorship  of  the  Industrial  Museum.  The 
expenditure  of  thought,  of  ingenuity,  of  research,  and 
management  —  the  expenditure,  in  a  word,  of  himself — 
involved  in  originating  and  giving  form  of  purpose  to  a 
scheme  so  new  and  so  undefined,  and,  in  our  view,  so 
undefinable,  must,  we  fear,  have  shortened  his  life,  and 
withdrawn  his  precious  and  quite  singular  powers  of 
illustrating  and  adorning,  and,  in  the  highest  sense, 
sanctifying  and  blessing  science,  from  this  which  seemed 
always  to  us  his  proper  sphere.  Indeed,  in  the  opinion 
of  some  good  judges,  the  institution  of  such  a  chair  at 
all,  and  especially  in  connection  with  a  University  such 
as  ours,  and  the  attaching  to  it  the  conduct  of  a  great 
Museum  of  the  Industrial  Arts,  was  somewhat  hastily 
gone  into,  and  might  have  with  advantage  waited  for 
and  obtained  a  little  more  consideration  and  forethought. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  Dr.  Wilson  did  his  duty  with  his 
whole  heart  and  soul  —  making  a  class,  which  was  al- 
ways increasing,  and  which  was  at  its  largest  at  his 
death. 

We  have  left  ourselves  no  space  to  speak  of  Dr. 
Wilson  as  an  author,  as  an  academic  and  popular  lec- 
turer, as  a  member  of  learned  societies,  as  a  man  of 
exquisite  literary  powers  and  fancy,  and  as  a  citizen  of 
remarkable  public  acceptation.  This  must  come  from 
some  more  careful,  and  fuller,  and  more  leisurely  rec- 
ord of  his  genius  and  worth.     What  he  was  as  a  friend 


DR.  GEORGE  WILSON.  393 

it  is  not  for  us  to  say ;  we  only  know  that  when  we  leave 
this  world  we  would  desire  no  better  memorial  than  to 
be  remembered  by  many  as  George  Wilson  now  is,  and 
always  will  be.  His  Life  of  Cavendish  is  admirable  as 
a  biography,  full  of  life,  of  picturesque  touches,  and  of 
realization  of  the  man  and  of  his  times,  and  is,  more- 
over, thoroughly  scientific,  containing,  among  other  dis- 
cussions, by  far  the  best  account  of  the  great  water  con- 
troversy from  the  Cavendish  point  of  view.  His  Life 
of  John  Reid  is  a  vivid  and  memorable  presentation  to 
the  world  of  the  true  lineaments,  manner  of  life,  and 
inmost  thought  and  heroic  sufferings,  as  well  as  of  the 
noble  scientific  achievements  of  that  strong,  truthful, 
courageous,  and  altogether  admirable  man,  and  true 
discoverer  —  a  genuine  follower  of  John  Hunter. 

The  Five  Gateways  of  Knowledge  is  a  prose  poem,  a 
hymn  of  the  finest  utterance  and  fancy  —  the  white  light 
of  science  diffracted  through  the  crystalline  prism  of  his 
mind  into  the  colored  glories  of  the  spectrum ;  truth 
dressed  in  the  iridescent  hues  of  the  rainbow,  and  not 
the  less  but  all  the  more  true.  His  other  papers  in  the 
British  Quarterly,  the  North  British  Review,  and  his 
last  gem  on  "  Paper,  Pens,  and  Ink,"  in  his  valued  and 
generous  friend  Macmillan's  first  number  of  his  Maga- 
zine, are  all  astonishing  proofs  of  the  brightness,  accu- 
racy, vivacity,  unweariedness  of  his  mind,  and  the  end- 
less sympathy  and  affectionate  play  of  his  affections  with 
the  full  round  of  scientific  truth.  His  essay  on  "  Color 
Blindness "  is,  we  believe,  as  perfect  a  monogram  as 
exists,  and  will  remain  likely  untouched  and  unadded 
to,  factum  ad  unguem.  As  may  be  seen  from  these 
remarks,  we  regard  him  not  so  much  as,  like  Edward 
Forbes,  a  great  observer  and  quiet  generalizer,  or,  like 


394  DR.   GEORGE  WILSON. 

Samuel  Brown,  a  discoverer  and  philosopher  properly 
so  called  —  though,  as  we  have  said,  he  had  enough  of 
these  two  men's  prime  qualities  to  understand  and  relish 
and  admire  them.  His  great  quality  lay  in  making 
men  love  ascertained  and  recorded  truth,  scientific  truth 
especially ;  he  made  his  reader  and  hearer  enjoy  facts. 
He  illuminated  the  Book  of  Nature  as  they  did  the 
missals  of  old.  His  nature  was  so  thoroughly  compos- 
ite, so  in  full  harmony  with  itself,  that  no  one  faculty 
could  or  cared  to  act  without  calling  in  all  the  others 
to  join  in  full  chorus.  To  take  an  illustration  from  his 
own  science,  his  faculties  interpenetrated  and  interfused 
themselves  into  each  other,  as  the  gases  do,  by  a  law 
of  their  nature.  Thus  it  was  that  everybody  understood 
and  liked  and  was  impressed  by  him ;  he  touched  him 
at  every  point.  Knowledge  was  to  him  no  barren,  cold 
essence  ;  it  was  alive  and  flushed  with  the  colors  of  the 
earth  and  skyy  and  all  over  with  light  and  stars.  His 
flowers  —  and  his  mind  was  full  of  flowers  —  were  from 
seeds,  and  were  sown  by  himself.  They  were  neither 
taken  from  other  gardens  and  stuck  in  rootless,  as  chil- 
dren do,  much  less  were  they  of  the  nature  of  gumflow- 
ers,  made  with  hands,  wretched  and  dry  and  scentless. 

Truth  of  science  was  to  him  a  body,  full  of  loveliness, 
perfection,  and  strength,  in  which  dwelt  the  unspeakable 
Eternal.  This,  which  was  the  dominant  idea  of  his 
mind  —  the  goodliness,  and  not  less  the  godliness  of  all 
science  —  made  his  whole  life,  his  every  action,  every 
letter  he  wrote,  every  lecture  he  delivered,  his  last  ex 
piring  breath,  instinct  with  the  one  constant  idea  that  all 
truth,  all  goodness,  all  science,  all  beauty,  all  gladness  are 
but  the  expression  of  the  mind  and  will  and  heart  of  the 
Great  Supreme.    And  this,  in  his  case,  was  not  mysticism, 


DR.   GEORGE  WILSON.  395 

neither  was  it  merely  a  belief  in  revealed  religion,  though 
no  man  cherished  and  believed  in  his  Bible  more  firmly 
and  cordially  than  he ;  it  was  the  assured  belief,  on 
purely  scientific  grounds,  that  God  is  indeed  and  in  very 
truth  all  in  all ;  that,  to  use  the  sublime  adaptation  by 
poor  crazy  Smart,  the  whole  creation,  visible  and  invisi- 
ble, spiritual  and  material,  everything  that  has  being, 
is  —  to  those  who  have  ears  to  hear  —  forever  declaring 
u  Thou  Art,"  before  the  throne  of  the  Great  I  Am. 

To  George  Wilson,  to  all  such  men  —  and  this  is  the 
great  lesson  of  his  life  —  the  heavens  are  forever  telling 
His  glory,  the  firmament  is  forever  showing  forth  His 
handiwork  ;  day  unto  day,  every  day,  is  forever  uttering 
speech,  and  night  unto  night  is  showing  knowledge  con- 
cerning Him.  When  he  considered  these  heavens,  as 
he  lay  awake  weary  and  in  pain,  they  were  to  him  the 
work  of  His  fingers.  The  moon,  walking  in  brightness, 
and  lying  in  white  glory  on  his  bed  —  the  stars  —  were 
by  Him  ordained.  He  was  a  singularly  happy,  and 
happy-making  man.  No  one  since  his  boyhood  could 
have  suffered  more  from  pain,  and  languor,  and  the 
misery  of  an  unable  body.  Yet  he  was  not  only  cheer- 
ful, he  was  gay,  full  of  all  sorts  of  fun  —  genuine  fun  — 
and  his  jokes  and  queer  turns  of  thought  and  word  were 
often  worthy  of  Cowper  or  Charles  Lamb.  We  wish 
we  had  them  collected.  Being,  from  his  state  of  health 
and  his  knowledge  of  medicine,  necessarily  "  mindful  of 
death,"  having  the  possibility  of  his  dying  any  day  or  any 
hour,  always  before  him,  and  "  that  undiscovered  coun- 
try "  lying  full  in  his  view,  he  must  —  taking,  as  he  did, 
the  right  notion  of  the  nature  of  things  —  have  had  a 
peculiar  intensity  of  pleasure  in  the  every-day  beauties 
of  the  world. 


596  DR.  GEORGE  WILSON. 

"  The  common  sun,  the  air,  the  skies, 
To  him  were  opening  Paradise." 

They  were  to  him  all  the  more  exquisite,  all  the  more 
altogether  lovely,  these  Pentlands,  and  well-known  rides 
and  places ;  these  rural  solitudes  and  pleasant  villages  and 
farms,  and  the  countenances  of  his  friends,  and  the  clear, 
pure,  radiant  face  of  science  and  of  nature,  were  to  him 
all  the  more  to  be  desired  and  blessed  and  thankful  for, 
that  he  knew  the  pallid  king  at  any  time  might  give  that 
not  unexpected  knock,  and  summon  him  away. 


ST.    PAUL'S    THORN   IN    THE    FLESH. 
WHAT    WAS   IT? 


ST.  PAUL'S  THORN  IN  THE  FLESH 

WAS  IT? 


WHAT 


F  the  15th  verse  of  the  fourth  chapter  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  instead  of  being 
taken  in  a  figurative  sense,  as  it  generally 
*H  *  has  been,  be  understood  literally,  it  will  be 
found  to  furnish  the  means  of  determining,  with  a  toler- 
ably near  approach  to  certainty,  the  particular  nature  of 
the  disease  under  which  St.  Paul  is  supposed  to  have 
labored,  and  which  he  elsewhere  speaks  of  as  the  "  Thorri 
m  his  flesh."  And  that  the  literal  interpretation  is  the 
true  one,  may,  I  think,  be  shown,  partly  from  the  general 
scope  of  the  paragraph  to  which  the  15th  verse  belongs  ; 
partly  from  some  peculiarities  of  expression  in  it,  which 
could  only  have  been  used  under  an  intention  that  the 
verse  in  question  should  be  taken  literally ;  and  partly 
also  from  the  fact  that  there  are  statements  and  allusions 
elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament,  which  assert  or  imply, 
that  St.  Paul  really  was  affected  in  the  manner  here  sup- 
posed to  be  indicated. 

"  Brethren,  I  beseech  you,"  says  the  Apostle,  "  be  as  1 
am  ;  for  I  am  as  ye  are  :  ye  have  not  injured  me  at  all. 
Ye  know  how  through  infirmity  of the  Jlesh  I  preached  the 
gospel  unto  you  at  the  first.  And  my  temptation  (trial) 
which  was  in  my  flesh  ye  despised  not,  nor  rejected;  but 
received  me  as  an  angel  of  God,  even   as  Christ  Jesus. 


400  ST.  PAUL'S  THORN  IN  THE  FLESH: 

Where  is  then  the  blessedness  ye  spake  of?  for  I  bear  you 
record,  that,  if  it  had  been  possible,  ye  would  have  plucked 
out  your  own  eyes,  and  have  given  them  to  me." 

The  last  words  of  this  passage,  "  Ye  would  have 
plucked  out  your  own  eyes,  and  have  given  them  to 
me,"  have  usually  been  taken  in  a  hyperbolical  or  pro- 
verbial sense,  as  if  a  merely  general  meaning  was  con- 
veyed, amounting  simply  to  —  "  There  was  no  sacrifice, 
however  great,  which  ye  would  not  have  made  for  me." 
But  it  is  plainly  open  to  inquiry,  whether  the  sense  is  not 
of  a  more  special  kind  ;  whether  (viz.)  St.  Paul  does  not 
here,  as  in  the  preceding  verses,  intend  to  remind  the 
Galatians  of  pure  matter  of  fact  —  to  recall  to  them,  not 
in  mere  general  terms,  the  depth  and  warmth  of  their  feel- 
ings and  professions  of  regard  for  him,  but  to  repeat  to 
them  perhaps  the  very  words  they  had  used,  and  to  re- 
vive in  their  memories  the  actual  and  express  import  of 
their  desires  and  anxieties.  If  this  be  the  case,  if  it 
really  was  a  common  and  habitual  thing  with  them  to 
express  a  wish  that  it  were  possible  for  them  to  pluck  out 
their  own  eyes,  and  to  transfer  them  to  the  apostle,  the 
only  way  of  reasonably  accounting  for  so  strange  and 
outre  a  proceeding,  is  to  suppose  that  St.  Paul  actually 
labored  either  under  entire  deprivation  of  vision,  or 
under  some  severely  painful  and  vexatious  disease  of 
the  eyes  :  The  meaning  being,  that  so  keenly  did  the 
Galatians  sympathize  with  the  apostle  in  his  affliction, 
that  they  would  willingly  have  become  his  substitutes 
by  taking  all  his  suffe-ing  upon  themselves,  if  only  it 
were  possible,  by  doing  so  to  relieve  him. 

That  there  is  at  least  no  prima  facie  objection  to  this 
explanation  of  the  words,  will,  I  think,  be  readily  enough 
admitted.     It  is   perfectly  simple  and  unforced,  and   it 


WHAT  WAS   IT?  401 

conveys  a  lively  and  touching  representation  of  the  feel- 
ings which  would  naturally  spring  up  in  the  minds  of  a 
grateful  and  warm-hearted  people,  to  their  great  benefactor 
and  friend,  who,  amidst  disease,  and  pain,  and  weakness, 
had  made  the  greatest  and  most  unwearying  exertions  to 
communicate  to  them  the  invaluable  truths  of  Christianity. 
But,  in  addition  to  this,  it  will  be  found,  I  think,  that 
under  the  literal  interpretation  of  the  15th  verse,  a  pe- 
culiar point  and  force  belongs  to  the  apostle's  appeal,  and 
a  closely  connected  and  harmonious  meaning  is  imparted 
to  the  whole  paragraph,  all  of  which,  it  seems  to  me,  are  lost 
if  the  figurative  explanation  is  adhered  to.  In  the  previous 
part  of  the  chapter,  St.  Paul  had  been  arguing  against 
the  foolish  predilection  which  the  Galatians  had  taken 
up  for  forms  and  formalisms  and  ceremonial  observances, 
and  strongly  exhorting  them  to  abandon  this  pernicious 
and  unchristian  propensity.  And  now,  in  the  paragraph 
quoted,  he  takes  up  new  ground,  and  appeals  to  them  by 
the  memory  of  their  old  affection  for  him,  to  listen  to  his 
arguments  and  entreaties,  and  to  be  of  one  mind  with 
him.  The  general  meaning  of  what  he  says  is  plain 
enough,  but  there  are  difficulties  of  detail,  both  in  par- 
ticular expressions,  and  in  the  train  of  thought.  The 
words,  for  example,  "  Be  as  I  am,  for  I  am  as  ye  are," 
at  once  strike  the  ear  as  a  peculiar  and  unusual  style  to 
adopt  in  an  invitation  to  unity  of  thought  and  feeling. 
But  if  the  last  clause  of  the  15th  verse  be  taken  liter- 
ally, I  think  it  will  appear  that  this  expression  has  a 
special  fitness  and  propriety.  The  words,  "  for  I  am  as 
ye  are,"  imply  a  reference,  I  imagine,  to  his  being,  in 
respect  of  his  bodily  affliction,  not  as  they  were  ;  and 
what  follows  is  intended  to  remind  them  how  anxious 
tney  were,  when  their  love  to  him  was  fresh,  to  be  "  as 

26 


402  ST.  PAUL'S   THORN  IN    THE  FLESH: 

he  was,"  even  although  it  would  have  been  necessary  to 
accept  bodily  pain  and  mutilation  to  attain  that  object. 
If  I  am  correct  in  thinking  the  first  clauce  of  the  12th 
verse,  and  the  last  of  the  15th,  to  be  thus  closely  related 
and  corresponsive,  it  will  be  seen  that  they  mutually 
explain  each  other  ;  and  the  apostle's  argument,  as  1 
understand  it,  may  then  be  thus  stated  :  —  If  you  were 
go  willing  and  eager,  when  I  was  with  you,  even  at  the 
cost  of  plucking  out  your  eyes,  to  "  be  as  I  am,"  surely 
you  will  hardly  refuse  me  the  same  thing  now  in  this 
other  matter,  wherein  there  is  no  such  difference  between 
us  as  to  raise  any  impediment  in  the  way  of  jour  com- 
pliance, where  no  such  sacrifice  as  ye  were  formerly 
ready  to  make  is  required  of  you,  and  where  all  that  is 
asked  from  you  is  to  give  up  your  false  opinions  and  evil 
practices,  and  simply  "  be  as  I  am "  in  believing  and 
obeying  the  truth  revealed. 

In  another  respect,  the  ordinary  explanation  involves, 
I  think,  an  unnatural  rupture  of  the  continuity  of 
thought,  which  is  completely  avoided  by  the  literal  in- 
terpretation of  the  passage.  In  the  13th  verse,  we  find 
the  apostle  introducing,  in  a  somewhat  formal  and  special 
manner,  the  subject  of  his  bodily  affliction.  "  Ye  know," 
he  says,  "  how  through  infirmity  of  the  flesh  I  preached 
the  gospel  to  you  at  the  first."  And  it  cannot  but  strike 
the  reader  as  strange  that,  after  this,  all  he  should  have 
to  say  about  the  matter,  is  that  the  Galatians  "  despised 
not  nor  rejected  it."  The  very  vagueness,  and  merely 
negative  character  of  this  expression,  excites  a  sort  of 
instinctive  expectation  that  he  will  forthwith  proceed  to 
state  something  more  positive  and  specific.  But  instead 
of  this  we  are  taught  by  the  common  explanation,  to 
suppose  that  an  abrupt  transition  is  at  once  made  from 


WHAT  WAS   IT?  40S 

the  subjecv  of  his  "  temptation  "  altogether  ;  the  statement 
about  the  attachment  of  the  Galatians,  instead  of  becom 
ing  more  distinct  and  special,  as  we  naturally  expect  it 
to  do,  suddenly  merges  into  the  widest  possible  general- 
ity ;  and  their  affection,  instead  of  being  described  by 
any  further  reference  to  the  facts  of  its  manifestation,  is 
now  represented  to  us  under  a  strong  (it  is  true)  but 
rather  fantastic  figure,  which  leaves  an  impression  of  its 
character  and  aspect  just  as  undecided  and  imperfect  aa 
before. 

But  a  closer  examination  of  the  words  at  once  throws 
doubt  on  this  conception  of  their  meaning.     In  the  13th 
and  14th   verses,  the  associated  ideas  are,  the  apostle's 
disease  or  affliction,  and  the  affectionate  concern  of  the 
Galatians  with  reference  to  it,     In  the  15th  verse,  the 
reference   to  the    Galatians'   display  of   affection  is  still 
continued,  and  now  the  idea  connected  with   it  is,  that 
of  their  giving  him  their  plucked-out  eyes.     But  this  is 
not  necessarily  a  change  of  association,  for,  as  already 
intimated,  their  plucking  out  their  eyes  and  giving  them 
to  the  apostle,  naturally  and  readily  suggests  the  thought 
that  their  design  was,  "  if  it  had  been  possible,"  to  sup- 
ply them  to  him  as   substitutes  for  his  own,  under   the 
assumption  of  the  latter  being  diseased  or  defective.     If 
this  be  the  reference,  then  the  missing  idea  reappears, 
the  lost  association  is  recovered ;  bodily  affliction  in  the 
apostle,  and  the  affection  of  the  Galatians  towards  him, 
are  still  the  connected  thoughts,  the  only  change  being 
just  what  might  naturally  be  expected  to  take  place  aa 
the  discourse  proceeded,  viz.: — that  the  ideas  are  more 
distinctly  developed,  and  that  what  was  previously  al- 
luded  to   in   general   terms,  is  now,  not  indeed  directly 
stated,    but    specifically   indicated     and    implied.      The 


404  ST.  PAUL'S   THORN   IN  THE  FLESH: 

"  temptation  "  in  the  one  verse,  and  the  disease  hinted 
by  implication  in  the  form  assumed  by  the  passionate 
sympathy  of  the  Galatians,  are  therefore  identified  ;  and 
thus,  the  whole  paragraph,  from  the  12th  to  the  15th 
verse,  instead  of  presenting  an  agglomeration  of  abrupt 
transitions  and  disconnected  thoughts,  evolves  a  close, 
natural,  and  continuous  meaning  throughout. 

Something  more,  however,  is  required  than  merely  to 
show  that  the  interpretation  which  I  propose  exhibits  a 
better  arrangement  and  connection  of  the  thoughts.  The 
apostle  may  have  written  in  haste,  and  that  explanation 
of  his  meaning  which  attributes  to  him  imperfect  con- 
nectedness, may  after  all  be  the  correct  one.  I  shall 
therefore  proceed  to  inquire  whether  some  further  light 
may  not  be  thrown  upon  the  subject,  by  a  more  minute 
investigation  than  I  have  yet  attempted,  of  particular 
words  and  turns  of  expression  in  the  passage. 

The  phrase,  "  I  bear  you  record,"  could  only  have 
been  used  with  propriety  in  reference  to  a  positive  fact; 
something  that  the  apostle  had  actually  witnessed.  He 
could  not  have  employed  this  language  in  announcing  a 
mere  inference  (as  the  common  interpretation  would 
make  it)  from  the  conduct  of  the  Galatians  towards  him, 
as  to  the  strength  and  extent  of  their  regard ;  for  a  man's 
testimony  can  only  bear  reference  to  facts  which  have 
actually  come  under  his  observation.  The  apostle's  lan- 
guage, let  it  be  observed,  is  not  the  declaration  of  a 
belief  that  the  Galatians  would  have  plucked  out  their 
own  eyes  in  his  behalf,  if  circumstances  had  arisen  to 
make  such  a  sacrifice  necessary  ;  it  is  the  announcement 
of  a  testimony  (/xaprvpw),  on  the  assumption  that  those 
circumstances  had  actually  arisen.  And  the  testimony 
is  not  to  the  effect  that  the  Galatians  entertained  strong 


WHAT  WAS   IT?  405 

affection  to  him,  and  as  a  consequence  of  that  affection, 
that  he  is  assured  they  would  have  plucked  out  theii 
eyes  for  him  (for  these  must  have  been  the  terms  of 
his  declaration,  upon  the  ordinary  understanding  of  the 
passage)  ;  but  it  is  direct  to  the  point,  that  if  it  had  only 
been  possible,  "  they  would  have  plucked  out  their  own 
eyes,  and  have  given  them  to  him."  Such  language,  it 
appears  to  me,  would  be  absurd,  unless  we  are  to  under- 
stand by  it,  that  the  Galatians  had  actually  expressed  a 
wish,  and  demonstrated  a  desire  to  perform  the  very  act 
which  the  apostle  speaks  of.  And  if  so,  I  think  it  is 
obviously  necessary  to  infer  that  some  circumstance  must 
have  existed  to  give  occasion  to  a  wish  of  so  peculiar  a 
kind,  in  the  minds  of  those  who  were  attached  to  the 
apostle's  person ;  and  the  only  circumstance  which  I  can 
conceive  of  as  calculated  to  excite  such  a  wish,  is  St. 
Paul's  suffering  under  some  painful  affection  of  the 
eyes. 

The  expression,  "  if  it  had  been  possible,"  has  also, 
I  think,  a  peculiar  significance.  If  the  sentence  in  the 
15th  verse,  beginning,  "I  bear  you  record,"  &c,  is 
thoughtfully  considered,  it  will  be  seen  that  three  sup- 
positions may  be  made  as  to  the  apostle's  meaning  and 
reference :  1st,  The  language  may  be  understood  (as  has 
usually  been  done)  in  a  figurative  or  proverbial  sense, 
and  as  containing  no  allusion  to  any  really  existing  cir- 
cumstances ;  2d,  It  may  be  taken  literally,  but  with 
reference  rather  to  what  might  happen  than  to  circum- 
stances actually  existing ;  as  if  the  writer  had  said,  "  If 
I  were  to  lose  my  eyes,  I  bear  you  record  that  you  would 
willingly  have  plucked  out  yours  to  supply  their  place  ;  " 
or,  3d,  The  words  may  be  understood  as  giving  a  plain 
matter-of-fact  representation  of  what  the  Galatians  really 


406  ST.  PAUL'S   THORN  IX  THE  FLESH: 

thought  and  felt  in  reference  to  the  apostle's  bodily  af- 
fliction. Now, I  think  it  maybe  made  out  quite  distinctly 
that  the  words  "  if  it  had  been  possible,"  could  only  have 
been  used  under  the  last  of  these  hypotheses ;  for  in  no 
other  case  would  the  contingency  of  possibility  have  pre- 
sented itself  to  the  writer's  mind.  If,  for  example,  we 
are  to  understand  the  language  as  literal,  but  with  refer- 
ence to  ihe  future  or  conceivable,  rather  than  the  present 
or  actual,  the  expression  would  obviously  have  been,  — 
"  I  bear  you  record  that  if  it  had  been  necessary"  or, 
"  if  such  a  thing  had  been  required  of  you  for  my  bene- 
fit, ye  would  have  plucked  out,"  &C1  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  suppose  the  language  to  be  figurative  or  pro- 
verbial, no  contingency  would  have  been  mentioned  at 
all,  for  it  is  characteristic  of  such  language  that  it  is 
always  absolute  and  unconditional.  For  example,  in  the 
expressions,  "  If  thy  right  hand  offend  thee,  cut  it  off, 
and  cast  it  from  thee  ; "  "  If  thy  right  eye  offend  thee, 
pluck  it  out,  and  cast  it  from  thee  ; "  every  one  at  once 
recognizes  the  purely  proverbial  or  figurative  character 
of  the  language,  and  this  simply  because  its  form  is  ab- 
solute and  unconditioned.  The  moment  you  introduce 
anything  like  a  condition,  and  make  the  removal  of  the 
sinning  eye  or  the  offending  hand  dependent  upon  some 
circumstance,  you  are  compelled  to  understand  the  words 

1  This  seems  to  have  been  the  view  taken  by  Calvin,  but  with 
that  logical  acuteness  which  was  characteristic  of  him,  he  at  the  same 
time  perceived  that  it  was  inaccordant  with  the  expression,  "  if  it 
had  been  possible."  In  his  commentary  upon  the  passage,  there- 
fore, he  substitutes  " si  opus  sit"  for  the  apostle's  words;  thus,  of 
course,  assuming  that  St.  Paul  had  adopted  an  inapt  phrase  to  ex- 
press his  meaning.  But  I  need  scarcely  say  that  such  a  mode  of 
interpretation  is  altogether  inadmissible,  the  only  legitimate  rule 
being  to  take  the  words  of  the  text  as  they  stand,  and  thence  to 
infer  the  circumstances  or  conditions  under  which  they  were  used. 


WHAT  WAS   IT?  407 

according  to  their  strictly  literal  meaning.  Thus,  if  our 
Lord,  instead  of  saying  what  he  did  in  this  case,  had 
used  such  an  expression  as  this,  — "  If  thy  right  hand 
offend  thee,  and  if  the  tendency  to  offend  be  insuper- 
able, cut  it  off;  "  or,  "  If  thy  right  eye  offend  thee,  and 
its  extraction  would  not  endanger  life,  pluck  it  out,"  it  is 
clear  that  the  expressions  could  only  have  been  taken 
in  their  strictly  literal  sense.  So,  in  the  words  under 
review,  it  is  also  obvious  that  the  introduction  of  the 
"  if  it  be  possible  "  takes  the  phrase  out  of  the  class  of 
figures  or  proverbs,  and  necessitates  its  interpretation  in 
a  close,  literal,  matter-of-fact  manner. 

Perhaps  a  slight  incident  which  lately  occurred  in  my 
presence  will  better  illustrate  what  I  wish  to  convey  than 
any  elaborate  exposition  could  do.  One  day,  a  poor 
simple-hearted  married  couple,  from  the  country,  called 
on  a  medical  friend  of  mine,  to  consult  him  about  a 
complaint  in  the  eyes  of  the  husband,  which  seemed  to 
threaten  him  with  total  blindness.  The  wife  entered  at 
great  length  into  all  the  symptoms  of  the  complaint, 
and. was  extremely  voluble  in  her  expressions  of  sym- 
pathy and  of  anxiety  that  something  should  be  done  to 
remove  the  disease.  It  was  difficult  to  repress  a  smile 
at  the  scene,  and  yet  it  was  touching  too ;  and  the  doc- 
tor, looking  in  the  old  woman's  honest  affectionate  face, 
quietly  said,  "  I  suppose  you  would  give  him  one  of 
your  own  eyes,  if  you  could:"  "That  I  would,  sir," 
was  the  immediate  answer.  Now,  it  is  clear  that  my 
friend's  words  could  only  have  been  used  under  the 
particular  circumstances  which  called  them  forth.  Had 
the  affection  of  the  old  woman  been  exhibited  upon  some 
other  occasion  than  her  husband's  threatened  blindness, 
he  might  have  said   (though,  of  course,  the  allusion  to 


408  ST.  PAUL'S   THOF.X  IN   THE  FLESH: 

eyes  at  all  would  not  very  naturally  or  probably  have 
suggested  itself),  •'  I  suppose  you  would  give  him  one 
of  your  own  eyes  if  he  required  it,"  but  he  could  never 
have  used  the  words,  "  if  you  could."  The  application 
of  this  to  the  language  used  by  St.  Paul  is  sufficiently 
obvious. 

Another  expression  in  this  paragraph  seems  to  me 
still  further  to  discriminate  the  nature  of  the  complaint 
under  which  St.  Paul  suffered.  I  mean  the  words, 
"  and  have  given  them  to  me."  Admitting  that  the  Ga- 
latians  might,  under  other  circumstances  than  diseased 
vision  in  the  apostle,  have  thought  of  such  a  way  of 
demonstrating  their  affection  to  him  as  plucking  out  their 
own  eyes,  I  cannot  imagine  how  the  notion  of  "  giving 
them  to  him  "  could  ever  have  occurred  to  them,  unless 
his  organs  of  sight  were  in  such  a  state  of  disease  as 
in  the  natural  association  of  ideas  to  give  rise  to  this 
vain  and  fanciful  wish.  For  the  very  fact  of  its  being 
thus  vain,  fanciful,  and  far-fetched,  makes  it  necessary 
to  assume  that  there  were  some  peculiar  circumstances  in 
the  case  to  occasion  a  thought  so  odd  and  out  of*  the 
way.  If  the  language  had  really  been  what  it  has  so 
generally  been  supposed  to  be — figurative  or  prover- 
bial—  I  can  conceive  the  apostle  putting  it  in  this  way, 
"  Ye  would  have  plucked  out  your  own  eyes  for  me"  or, 
"  to  show  the  strength  of  your  affection  for  me  ; "  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  absurd  and  unmeaning  to  say, 
'■  and  have  given  them  to  me"  unless  under  the  idea  of 
such  giving  being  of  some  service  to  the  apostle,  as  a 
kindly  fancy  would  naturally  dwell  upon  the  thought  of 
its  being,  if  St.  Paul's  own  eyes  were  injured  or  de- 
stroyed. And,  further,  we  are  compelled,  I  think,  tc 
conclude  that   the  idea  of  substitution    is  conveyed   by 


WHAT  WAS   IT?  409 

the  word  "  given,"  from  this  fact,  that  the  clause,  "  if 
it  had  been  possible,"  has  actually  no  meaning  at  all, 
unless  it  is  to  be  understood  as  referring  to  the  sup- 
posed attempt  of  the  apostle  to  make  use  of  the  Gala- 
tians'  eyes.  It  is  clear  that  the  writer  could  not  have 
used  the  words,  "  if  it  had  been  possible  "  in  reference 
to  the  "  plucking  out,"  because  there  the  obstacle  of  im- 
possibility did  not  present  itself;  there  was  nothing  to 
hinder  the  Galatians  from  plucking  out  their  eyes  if 
they  had  been  so  disposed.  Neither  could  the  refer- 
ence have  been  to  "giving"  in  the  simple  sense  of  that 
word ;  if  they  could  pluck  out  their  eyes  there  was  no 
impossibility  in  merely  giving  them  to  the  apostle.  The 
only  thing  about  the  possibility  of  which  there  could  be 
any  question  was  their  being  so  given  —  so  made  over 
to  him  as  to  be  of  any  service  as  substitutes  for  his 
own. 

One  other  expression  in  the  paragraph  still  requires  to 
be  noticed,  but  I  must  defer  alluding  to  it  until  I  have 
referred  to  some  other  points  which  seem  to  me  to  have 
a  bearing  upon  the  question.  In  the  mean  time,  having 
thus  shown  how  exactly  the  whole  of  the  language  of 
this  passage  tallies  with  the  idea  of  the  apostle  having 
been  affected  with  some  distressing  complaint  in  his  eyes, 
it  is  surely  very  remarkable  to  learn,  from  a  totally  dif- 
ferent source,  that  St.  Paul  actually  had  at  one  period  of 
his  life  lost  the  power  of  vision.  I  allude,  of  course  to 
what  is  recorded,  in  the  ninth  chapter  of  Acts,  of  the 
strange  occurrence  which  took  place  when  he  was  on  his 
way  to  Damascus.  And  although  we  are  informed  that 
he  shortly  afterwards  recovered  his  sight,  it  is  obvious 
that  this  is  quite  compatible  with  the  existence  of  much 
remaining  disease  and  imperfection  of  vision.     Indeed,  1 


410  ST.  PAUL'S   THOKX  IN  THE  FLESH: 

am  not  sure  but  his  own  language  in  giving  an  account 
of  the  extraordinary  event  actually  favors  the  idea  that 
the  miraculous  cure  effected  by  Ananias  went  barely  to 
the  restoration  of  sight,  and  did  not  amount  to  a  com- 
plete removal  of  the  injury  which  his  eyes  had  sustained. 
In  his  address  to  the  Jews  at  Jerusalem,  when  he  stood 
upon  the  stairs  of  the  castle  (Acts  xxii.  13),  all  that  he 
pays  is,  "Ananias  came  unto  me  and  stood  and  said  unto 
me,  Brother  Saul,  receive  thy  sight.  And  the  same 
hour  /  looked  up  upon  Mm."  In  Acts  ix.  18,  the  words 
are,  "  Immediately  there  fell  from  his  eyes  as  it  had  been 
scales,  and  he  received  sight  forthwith."  In  neither  pas- 
sage at  least  is  there  anything  inconsistent  with  the  idea 
that  his  eyes,  though  they  had  not  lost  the  power  of 
vision,  may  yet  have  been  seriously  and  perhaps  perma- 
nently injured.  And  although  it  is  perhaps  scarcely 
legitimate  to  bring  it  forward  as  an  argument  for  the 
view  which  I  have  adopted,  yet  it  is  impossible  to  over- 
look the  fact  that  a  most  important  end  was  served  by 
the  apostle's  eyes  being  permitted  to  retain  the  marks  of 
disease  and  severe  injury,  for  a  standing  proof  was  thus 
afforded  to  the  Church  and  to  the  world  that  the  extraor- 
dinary vision,  so  confirmatory  of  the  truth  of  our  holy 
religion,  was  not,  as  some  might  otherwise  have  been  in- 
clined to  think  it,  a  vain  fancy  of  the  apostle's  own  mind. 
Often,  no  doubt,  when  St.  Paul  told  of  that  remarkable 
meeting  with  the  Lord  Jesus,  he  was  met  by  the  reply, 
"  '  Paul,  thou  art  beside  thyself; '  delusion,  a  heated  im- 
agination, has  deceived  and  betrayed  you."  But  he  had 
only  to  point  to  his  branded,  half-quenched  orbs,  and  to 
ask  the  objectors  if  mental  hallucinations  were  accus- 
tomed to  produce  such  effects  on  the  bodily  frame.  Tc 
such   a   question    there    could   obviously  be  no  answer 


WHAT  WAS  IT?  41 1 

And  if  the  objectors  were  satisfied  of  the  apostle's  ve- 
racity in  alleging  the  one  thing  to  be  the  effect  of  the 
other,  it  was  hardly  possible  for  then)  to  gainsay  the 
claim  of  a  Divine  origin  for  Christianity. 

This  hypothesis  as  to  the  cause  and  occasion  of  St, 
Paul's  infirmity,  receives  from  another  part  of  Scripture, 
where  allusion  is  made  to  it,  a  somewhat  remarkable 
confirmation.  In  the  12th  chapter  of  Second  Corinthi- 
ans, it  cannot,  I  think,  after  what  I  have  just  stated, 
but  be  regarded  a*  very  singular  that  the  "  thorn  in 
the  flesh  "  i«  mentioned  in  immediate  connection  with 
"  visions  and  revelations  of  the  Lord."  The  ordinary 
idea,  indeed,  has  been  that  this  connection  is  merely  in- 
cidental ;  but  a  little  consideration,  I  think,  will  show 
that  this  cannot  be  the  case.  In  the  7th  verse  he  says, 
"And  lest  I  should  be  exalted  above  measure  through 
the  abundance  of  the  revelations,  there  was  given  to  me 
a  thorn  in  the  flesh,"  &c.  Now,  T  contend  that  unless 
there  was  some  such  intimate  relation  between  the  thorn 
in  the  flesh  and  the  revelations  in  question,  as  that  of 
the  one  being  immediately  occasioned  by  the  other,  the 
humbling  effect  here  attributed  to  the  bodily  infirmity 
could  not  have  been  produced  on  the  apostle's  mind,  be- 
cause the  cause  assigned  would  have  been  unsuitable  and 
inadequate  to  such  an  effect.  It  is  true  that  every  afflic- 
tion, bodily  or  otherwise,  has  a  tendency  to  produce  a 
feeling  of  humiliation,  but  it  does  so  only  in  so  far  as  it 
cuts  away  the  ground  on  which  we  are  disposed  to  build 
up  matter  of  pride  or  boasting.  If  a  man  is  proud  of 
his  strength  or  personal  beauty,  it  would  humble  him  to 
lose  a  limb,  or  to  have  his  features  disfigured  by  loath- 
some disease.  But  these  afflictions  would  not  produce 
the  same  effect  if  they  befell  another  person  who  valued 


412  ST.  PAUL'S   THORN    IN   THE  FLESH: 

himself  exclusively  upon  Lis  learning  and  mental  endow- 
ments.    The  pride  of  learning  and  of  intellect  would,  in 
such  a  case,  remain  as  strong  as  ever.     Accordingly  we 
find    that   deformed   persons,   so  far  from    being  distin- 
guished  by  the  grace  of  humility,  are  very  frequently 
rather    remarkable    for    the   opposite   characteristics    of 
vanity  and  self-conceit ;  so  natural  is  it  for  the  mind  to 
take  refuge  from  what  tends  to  produce  a  sense  of  degra 
dation,  in  something  that  the  humbling  stroke  does  not 
directly  smite.     It  does  not,  therefore,  distinctly  appear, 
in  any  explanation  of  St.  Paul's  affliction  which  would  re- 
fer it  to  disease  of  an  ordinary  kind,  l^ow  it  should  have 
had  the  effect  which  he  attributes  to  it,  —  that  of  prevent- 
ing him  from  being  unduly  exalted  by  the  abundance  of 
the  revelations  made  to  him.     But  when  it  is   pointed 
out  that  his  affliction  was  the  immediate  consequence  of 
his  close  intercourse  with  Deity,  the  relation  of  the  two 
things  assumes^ an  entirely  different  aspect,  and  a  suf- 
ficient cause  of  humiliation  appears.     For,  if  at  any  time 
the  apostle  was  disposed  to  glorify  himself  on  his  superi- 
ority to  his  fellow-men,  and  on  being  the  peculiar  favorite 
and  friend  of  God,  his  real  insignificance,  and  the  infinite 
distance  that   lay  between  him   and  the  Divine  Being, 
must  have  been  sent  home  with  irresistible  power  to  his 
mind,  by  the  recollection  that,  the  mere  sight  of  that  ter- 
rible majesty  had  struck  him  to  the  ground,  and  had  left 
an   ever-during  brand  of  pain  and  disfigurement  on  his 
person.     I   shall  just  add,   that  in   Second   Corinthians 
xii.  7,  the  words,  rrj  vTrepftoXr}  twv  d7ro/va/\.Di//eW  may  with 
quite   as  much    propriety  be    construed  with   euody  put 
o-KoAoi/f  rrj  aapKi.,  as  with  Iva  /xr;  {>7repai/3a>^ai ;  the  mean- 
ing being  thus  given,  —  "  and  that  I  might  not  be  ex- 
alted, a  thorn  in  the  flesh  [caused]  by  the  exceeding 


WHAT  WAS  IT?  413 

greatness  (for  this  rather  than  '  abundance  '  seems  to  me 
the  proper  translation  of  virepftoXrj)  of  the  revelations, 
was  given  me." 

If  the  account  I  have  thus  given  of  the  connection  be- 
tween   St.  Paul's  "  thorn  in  the  flesh,''  and  the  visions  or 
revelations  with   which   he   was  favored,  be  the   correct 
one,  we  are  now  furnished  with  the  means  of  explaining 
a  somewhat  obscure  expression  in  the  14th  verse  of  the 
fourth  chapter  of  Galatians,  to  which  I  promised  to  re- 
turn :  "  And  my  trial  which  was  in  my  flesh,  ye  despised 
not,  nor  rejected."     If  we  are  compelled  to  abide  by  the 
belief,  that  St.  Paul's  "  trial "  was  merely  some  bodily 
affliction  of  the   ordinary  kind,  we   can   understand  the 
meaning  of  his  saying  that  the   Galatians  did  not  "de- 
spise "  it  (although,  by  the  way,  it  seems  rather  a  micro- 
scopic basis  on  which  to  found  a  laudation  of  a  body  of 
Christian  men  and  women,  to  say  that  they  were  so  good 
as  not  to  despise  him  on  account  of  a  natural  bodily  in- 
firmity), but  it  is  impossible,  on  this  assumption,  to  at- 
tach any  consistent   sense   to   the   word  "rejected."      It 
has,  therefore,  been   taken   as  simply  synonymous  with 
"  despise,"  an  interpretation  which  is  objectionable,  both 
because  it  is  at  variance  with  the  well-ascertained  mean- 
ing of  the  Greek  word  i^ewTvaaT^  (spit  out,  not  spit  at). 
and  also  because  it  involves  the  imputation  of  needless 
tautology   to    St.   Paul's    language,  from    which,    almost 
more  than  from  any  other  fault  of  style,  the  whole  of  his 
writings  prove  him  to  be  singularly  free.     But  if  my  ex- 
planation of  the  nature  of  the  apostle's  trial  be  the  true 
one,  every  word  of  the  sentence  has  a  clear  and  intel- 
ligible  meaning.     St.  Paul  came  among  the  Galatians 
proclaiming  to  them  the  glad  truth,  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
risen  from  the  dead.     How  did  he  know  it?     Because 


414  ST.  PAUL'S   THORN  IN   THE  FLESH: 

he  himself  had  seen  him  alive  after  his  passion,  "  when 
he  came  near  to  Damascus."  Was  he  quite  sure  that 
the  vision  was  not  a  dream,  or  a  delusion  ?  He  pointed 
to  his  eyes  in  proof  that  it  was  a  great  certainty,  a  ter- 
rible as  well  as  joyous  reality.  And  this  evidence  the 
Galatians  "  despised  not,  nor  rejected." 

This  explanation  of  the  reference  of  "  rejected,"  has 
also  the  advantage  of  removing  a  difficulty  which  has 
hitherto  been  felt  in  the  translation  of  the  preceding 
verse.  It  is  there  said,  "  Ye  know  how  through  in- 
firmity of  the  flesh  I  preached,"  &c.  Now,  it  so  hap- 
pens, that  the  Greek  words  8l  aaOeretav,  cannot,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  common  usage  of  the  language,  be 
translated  "through"  (in  the  sense  of  during)  "infirm- 
ity." Had  this  been  the  meaning  which  the  apostle  in- 
tended to  convey,  he  would  have  used  the  genitive  81 
dcri9ei€ias.  With  the  accusative,  the  reference  of  8lol  is 
generally  found'to  be  to  the  instrument,  ground,  or  cause 
of  anything,  and  its  meaning  is — by,  on  account  of, 
by  means  of,  on  the  ground  of,  &C.1  The  literal  and 
strictly  correct  translation  of  St.  Paul's  words,  therefore, 
is  :  "  By  the  infirmity  of  my  flesh,  I  proclaimed  to  you 
the  good  news,"  i.  e.,  I  adduced  the  fact  of  my  bodily 
affliction,  as  giving  indisputable  evidence  of  the  truth 
which  I  told  you  about  the  resurrection  and  exaltation 
of  Jesus  Christ,  and  this  evidence  "ye  despised  not,  nor 
rejected."  Thus,  not  only  a  specific  meaning  is  attached 
to  the  word  "  rejected,"  but  a  much  more  close,  distinct, 
and  consistent  sense  is  given  to  the  whole  passage,  than 
upon  any  other  understanding  of  the  reference  it  could 
possess. 

1  See  Robinson's  Lexicon  to  the  New  Testament,  sub  voce  d&. 


WHAT  WAS  IT?  415 

There  are  one  or  two   other   passages  in    St.  Paul's 
Epistles,  in  which  reference,  I  think,  is  implied  to  this 
subject  of  hi,^  bodily  affliction,  and  all  of  them  seem  to 
me  to  afford  incidentally  some  confirmation  of  the  par- 
ticular view  of  the  matter  which  I  have  endeavored  to 
establish.     At  the  close  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatiana 
(chap.  vi.  verse  11),  we  find  him  saying,  "Ye  see  how 
large  a  letter  I  have  written  to  you  with  my  own  hand." 
Now,  the  letter  is  not  a  very  large  one ;  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  one  of  the  shorter  of  the  apostle's  productions.    And, 
then,  why  should  he   take  credit  for  having   written   it 
with  his  own  hand  ?     Under  ordinary  circumstances,  it 
would  scarcely  occur  to  any  one  in  the  habit  of  writing 
at  all,  to  speak  of  this  as  any  remarkable  achievement. 
But,  if  the    Galatians  knew  him   to   be   laboring   under 
impaired  vision,  and  perhaps   severe    pain    in   his   eyes, 
the  words  are  peculiarly  significant,  and   could  not  fail 
to  make  a  touching  impression  on  the  quick,  impulsive 
temperament,  so  vividly  alive  to  anything   outward,  of 
the    Celtic   tribe    to  which   they  were  addressed.     And 
thus  too,  we  obtain  an  explanation  of  what  would  other- 
wise be  rather  unaccountable,  how  a  man  of  St.  Paul's 
active  habits,  and  whom  we  have  difficulty  in  conceiv- 
ing of  as  accustomed  in  anything  to  have  recourse   to 
superfluous    ministrations,    seems    to    have     almost    uni- 
formly employed  an  amanuensis  in  writing  to  the  vari- 
ous churches.1 

Again,  at  the  very  conclusion  of  the  Epistle,  we  have 

i  It  has  been  suggested  to  me  that  the  state  of  St.  Paul's  eyesight 
might  also  furnish  an  explanation  of  his  mistake  in  not  recognizing 
the  High  Priest,  which  is  recorded  in  Acts  xxiii.  5,  and  about  which 
some  difficulty  has  been  felt  by  commentators*  One  can  picture  the 
great  apostle,  who  was  a  thorough  gentleman,  stretching  forward,  and 
shading  his  eyes,  to  see  better,  and  saying,  "  Pardon  me,  I  did  not 
see  it  was  the  High  Priest."    "  I  wist  not." 


416  ST.  PAUL'S   THORN  IN   THE  FLESH: 

what  I  cannot  help  regarding  as  another  allusion  to  his 
affliction  :  "  From  henceforth  let  no  man  trouble  me ; 
for  I  bear  in  my  body  the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus" 
It  has  been  customary  to  regard  these  words  as  refer- 
ring to  the  marks  of  scourging,  stoning,  &c,  which  had 
been  imprinted  on  the  apostle's  body  by  the  enemies  of 
the  gospel,  in  the  course  of  the  persecutions  to  which  he 
had  been  subjected  in  consequence  of  his  firm  adherence 
to  the  faith.  But  though  the  fact  of  his  having  under- 
gone severe  persecution  was  a  strong  proof  of  his  sin- 
cerity, it  was  no  proof  at  all  of  his  bearing  any  authority 
over  the  Galatians.  Yet  this  is  what  he  must  be  un- 
derstood as  asserting  here.  And  I  cannot  help  think- 
ing that  the  words,  "marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus,"  are 
chosen  with  a  reference  to  that  relationship  which  was 
established  between  St.  Paul  and  his  Master  and  Lord, 
on  the  occasion  of  that  extraordinary  meeting  on  the 
way  to  Damascus,  for  it  was  then  he  received  his  com- 
mission to  bear  Christ's  name  to  the  Gentiles.  2ny/xaTa 
were  the  brands  with  which  slaves  were  marked  in  order 
to  prove  their  ownership.  So,  if  I  am  right  in  my  un- 
derstanding of  the  meaning  of  the  word  here,  the  apostle 
intends  to  intimate  that  the  blasting  effect  produced  on 
his  eyes  by  the  glory  of  that  light,  constituted  the  brand 
which  attested  his  being  the  servant  (SouAos)  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  of  his  being  commissioned  by  him  to  com- 
municate to  others  the  truth  of  the  gospel.  This  gives 
a  f>rce  and  fulness  of  meaning  which  corresponds  ex 
actly  with  the  peculiar  energy  of  the  expression,  while, 
according  to  any  ordinary  explanation  of  the  passage, 
it  seems  rather  to  be  strong  language  used  without  any 
adequate  occasion  for  it.1 

l  It  may  be  worth  mentioning  here,  that  an  opinion  prevails  in  the 


WHAT   WAS   IT?  417 

I  think  the  circumstance  of  the  expression,  "  marks  of 
the  Lord  Jesus,"  occurring  just  where  it  does,  at  the 
close  of  the  Epistle,  is  worthy  of  remark.  From  what 
he  says  at  the  11th  verse  of  the  same  chapter  (  "  Ye  see 
how  large  a  letter  I  have  written  to  you  with  my  own 
hand")  it  is  obvious  that,  to  whatever  cause  it  is  to  be 
attributed,  the  act  of  writing  was  one  of  considerable 
effort  to  the  apostle.  His  zeal,  and  anxiety,  and  Chris- 
tian affection,  however,  had  borne  him  up,  and  carried 
him  through  with  his  task.  But  just  as  he  was  con- 
cluding, I  imagine  that  he  began  to  feel  that  the  effort  he 
had  made  was  greater  than  his  infirmity  was  well  able 
to  bear.  If  my  idea  as  to  the  nature  of  that  infirmity 
be  correct,  his  weak,  diseased  eyes  were  burning  and 
smarting  more  than  ordinarily,  from  the  unusual  exer- 
tion that  had  been  demanded  from  them  ;  and  this,  at 
once  leading  his  mind  to  what  had  been  the  cause  of 
that  exertion,  the  misconduct  of  the  Galatians  and  their 
teachers,  naturally  wrung  from  him  an  assertion  of  his 
authority,  in  the  impetuous  and  reproachful,  but  at  the 
same  time  deeply  pathetic  exclamation  :  "  From  hence- 
forth let  no  man  trouble  me,  for  I  bear  in  my  body  the 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  that  persons  who  have  been  favored  with 
Divine  visions,  or  to  whom  God  wishes  to  give  a  token  of  his  peculiar 
love,  are  frequently  marked  by  what  are  specifically  called  stigmas. 
I  have  not  met  with  any  account  of  the  grounds  on  which  this  opin- 
ion is  founded:  but  the  stigmas  are  explained  to  be  the  marks  of  the 
Saviour's  five  wounds.  It  is  very  likely  that  the  notion  is  nothing 
more  than  a  fantastic  and  superstitious  explanation  of  the  passage  in 
Galatians  vi.  17.  But  it  is  not  altogether  impossible  that  it  may  be 
the  faint  and  imperfect  echo  of  some  early  tradition  in  the  Church 
as  to  the  physical  effect  produced  upon  St.  Paul  by  Christ's  miracu- 
lous appearance  to  him  near  Damascus.  Whatever  be  its  origin,  the 
existence  of  such  an  opinion  is  not  without  a  certain  degree  of  curi- 
osity and  interest. 

27 


418  ST.  PAUL'S   THORN  IX  THE  FLESH. 

marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus."     And  so  he  concludes  trig 
Epistle. 

In  pursuing  the  above  inquiry,  certain  further  conclu- 
sions, naturally  flowing  out  of  what  I  have  attempted  to 
establish,  and  yet  involving  results  considerably  remote 
from  it,  have  presented  themselves  to  my  thoughts.  I  am 
inclined  to  regard  them  as  calculated  in  some  degree  to 
simplify  the  mode  of  presenting  the  Christian  scheme  to 
the  mind,  and  to  impart  to  its  claims  upon  the  under- 
standing and  belief  more  of  logical  directness,  and  less 
of  the  liability  to  evasion,  than  appear  to  me  to  char- 
acterize some  of  the  more  ordinary  modes  of  its  presen- 
tation. But  I  must  leave  the  development  of  this,  the 
most  interesting,  as  I  think,  and  important  part  of  my 
subject,  to  some  future  opportunity,  should  it  be  granted 
me. 


THE  BLACK  DWARFS  BONES. 


"  If  thou  wtrt  grim, 
Jj<ime,ugly,  crooked,  swart,  prod igious." 

King  John. 


THE  BLACK  DWARFS  BONES. 


HESE  gnarled,  stunted,  useless  old  bones, 
were  all  that  David  Ritchie,  the  original 
of  the  Black  Dwarf,  had  for  left  femur  and 
tibia,  and  we  have  merely  to  look  at  them 
and  add  poverty,  to  know  the  misery  summed  up  in  their 
possession.  They  seem  to  have  been  blighted  and  rick- 
ety. The  thigh-bone  is  very  short  and  slight,  and  singu- 
larly loose  in  texture  ;  the  leg-bone  is  dwarfed,  but  dense 
and  stout.  They  were  given  to  me  many  years  ago  by 
the  late  Andrew  Ballantyne,  Esq.  of  Woodhouse  (the 
Wudess,  as  they  call  it  on  Tweedside),  and  their  genu- 
ineness is  unquestionable. 

As  anything  must  be  interesting  about  one  once  so 
forlorn  and  miserable,  and  whom  our  great  wizard  has 
made  immortal,  I  make  no  apology  for  printing  the  fol- 
lowing letters  from  my  old  friend  Mr.  Craig,  long  surgeon 
in  Peebles,  and  who  is  now  spending  his  evening,  after  a 
long,  hard,  and  useful  day's  work,  in  the  quiet  vale  of 
Manor,  within  a  mile  or  two  of  "  Cannie  Elshie's  "  cot- 
tage. The  picture  he  gives  is  very  affecting,  and  should 
make  us  all  thankful  that  we  are  "  wiselike."  There  is 
much  that  is  additional  to  Sir  Walter's  account,  in  his 
"  Author's  Edition  "  of  the  Waverley  Novels. 


422  THE  BLACK  DWARF'S  BONES. 

"  Hall  Manor,  Tlmrsday,  May  20, 1858. 

"My  dear  Sir, —  David  Ritchie,  alias  Bowed  Davie, 
was  born  at  Easter  Happrew,  in  the  parish  of  Stobo,  in 
the  year  1741.  He  was  brought  to  "Woodhouse,  in  the 
parish  of  Manor,  when  very  young.  His  father  was  a 
laborer,  and  occupied  a  cottage  on  that  farm  ;  his  mother, 
Anabel  Niven,  was  a  delicate  woman,  severely  afflicted 
with  rheumatism,  and  could  not  take  care  of  him  when 
an  infant.  To  this  cause  he  attributed  his  deformity,  and 
this,  if  added  to  imperfect  clothing,  and  bad  food,  and 
poverty,  will  account  for  the  grotesque  figure  which  he 
became.  He  never  was  at  school,  but  could  read  toler- 
ably; had  many  books;  was  fond  of  poetry,  especially 
Allan  Ramsay ;  he  hated  Burns.  His  father  and  mother 
both  died  early,  and  poor  Davie  became  a  homeless  wan- 
derer ;  he  was  two  years  at  Broughton  Mill,  employed  in 
stirring  the  husks  of  oats,  which  were  used  for  drying  the 
corn  on  the  kiln,  and  required  to  be  kept  constantly  in 
motion ;  he  boasted,  with  a  sort  of  rapture,  of  his  doings 
there.  From  thence  he  went  to  Lyne's  Mill,  near  his 
birth-place,  where  he  continued  one  year  at  the  same 
employment,  and  from  thence  he  was  sent  to  Edinburgh 
to  learn  brush-making,  but  made  no  progress  in  his  edu- 
cation there  ;  was  annoyed  by  the  wicked  boys,  or  keelies, 
as  he  called  them,  and  found  his  way  back  to  Manor  and 
Woodhouse.  The  farm  now  possessed  by  Mr.  Ballan- 
tyne,  was  then  occupied  by  four  tenants,  among  whon 
lie  lived  ;  but  his  house  was  at  Old  "Woodhouse,  where 
the  late  Sir  James  Nasmyth  built  him  a  house  with  two 
apartments,  and  separate  outer  doors,  one  for  himself 
exactly  his  own  height  when  standing  upright  in  it ;  and 
this  stands  as  it  was  built,  exactly  four  feet.      A  Mr 


THE  BLACK  DWARF'S   BONES.  423 

Ritchie,  the  father  of  the  late  minister  of  Athelstaneford, 
was  then  tenant ;  his  wife  and  Davie  could  not  agree,  and 
she  repeatedly  asked  her  husband  to  put  hini  away,  by 
making  the  highest  stone  of  his  house  the  lowest.  Ritchie 
left,  his  house  was  pulled  down,  and  Davie  triumphed  in 
having  the  stones  of  his  chimney-top  made  a  step  to  his 
door,  when  this  new  house  was  built.  He  was  not  a 
little  vindictive  at  times  when  irritated,  especially  when 
any  allusion  was  made  to  his  deformity.  On  one  occa- 
sion, he  and  some  other  boys  were  stealing  pease  in 
Mr.  Gibson's  field,  who  then  occupied  Woodhouse  ;  all 
the  others  took  leg-bail,  but  Davie's  locomotion  being 
tardy,  he  was  caught,  shaken,  and  scolded  by  Gibson 
for  all  the  rest.  This  he  never  forgot,  and  vowed  to 
be  avenged  on  the  "  auld  sinner  and  deevil ; "  and  one 
day  when  Gibson  was  working  about  his  own  door, 
Davie  crept  up  to  the  top  of  the  house,  which  was  low, 
and  threw  a  large  stone  down  on  his  head,  which  brought 
the  old  man  to  the  ground.  Davie  crept  down  the  other 
side  of  the  house,  got  into  bed  beside  his  mother,  and  it 
was  never  known  where  the  stone  came  from,  till  he 
boasted  of  it  long  afterwards^  He  only  prayed  that  it 
might  sink  down  through  his  "ham-pan"  (his  skull). 
His  personal  appearance  seems  to  have  been  almost  in- 
describable, not  bearing  any  likeness  to  anything  in  this 
upper  world.  But  as  near  as  I  can  learn,  his  forehead 
was  very  narrow  and  low,  sloping  upwards  and  backward, 
omething  of  the  hatchet  shape  ;  his  eyes  deep  set,  small, 
and  piercing  ;  his  nose  straight,  thin  as  the  end  of  a  cut 
of  cheese,  sharp  at  the  point,  nearly  touching  his  fear- 
fully projecting  chin  ;  and  his  mouth  formed  nearly  a 
straight  line  ;  his  shoulders  rather  high,  but  his  body 
otherwise  the  size  of  ordinary  men;  his  arms  were  re- 


424  THE  BLACK  DWARF'S  BONES. 

markably  strong.  With  very  little  aid  he  built  a  high 
garden  wall,  which  still  stands,  many  of  the  stones  of 
huge  size ;  these  the  shepherds  laid  to  his  directions. 
His  legs  beat  all  power  of  description  ;  they  were  bent 
in  every  direction,  so  that  Mungo  Park,  then  a  surgeon 
at  Peebles,  who  was  called  to  operate  on  him  for  strangu- 
lated hernia,  said  he  could  compare  them  to  nothing  but 
a  pair  of  corkscrews  ;  but  the  principal  turn  they  took 
was  from  the  knee  outwards,  so  that  he  rested  on  big 
inner  ankles,  and  the  lower  part  of   his  tibias. 

'An'  his  knotted  knees  play'd  aye  knoit  between.' 

"  He  had  never  a  shoe  on  his  feet ;  the  parts  on  which 
he  walked  were  rolled  in  rags,  old  stockings,  &c,  but  the 
toes  always  bare,  even  in  the  most  severe  weather.  His 
mode  of  progressing  was  as  extraordinary  as  his  shape. 
He  carried  a  long  pole,  or  '  kent,'  like  the  Alpenstock, 
tolerably  polished,  with  a  turned  top  on  it,  on  which  he 
rested,  placed  it  before  him,  he  then  lifted  one  leg,  some- 
thing in  the  manner  that  the  oar  of  a  boat  is  worked,  and 
then  the  other,  next  advanced  his  staff,  and  repeated  the 
operation,  by  diligently  doing  which  he  was  able  to  make 
not  very  slow  progress.  He  frequently  walked  to  Pee- 
bles, four  miles,  and  back  again,  in  one  day.  His  arms 
had  no  motion  at  the  elbow-joints,  but  were  active  enough 
otherwise.  He  was  not  generally  ill-tempered,  but  furi- 
ous when  roused. 

"  Robert  Craig." 

"  Hall  Manor,  June  15,  1858. 
"  Mr  dear  Sir,  —  I  have  delayed  till  now  to  finish 
Bowed  Davie,  in  the  hope  of  getting  more  information, 
and  to  very  little  purpose.     His  contemporaries  are  now 


THE  BLACK   DWARF'S   BONES.  425 

%o  few,  old,  and  widely  scattered,  that  they  are  difficult  to 
be  got  at,  and  when  come  at,  their  memories  are  failed, 
like  their  bodies.  I  have  forgotten  at  what  stage  of  his 
history  I  left  off;  but  if  I  repeat,  you  can  omit  the  repe- 
tition?. Sir  James  Nasmyth,  late  of  Posso,  took  compas- 
sion on  the  houseless,  homeless  lusus  natures,  and  had  a 
house  built  for  him  to  his  own  directions  ;  the  door,  win- 
dow, and  everything  to  suit  his  diminished,  grotesque 
form  ;  the  door  four  feet  high,  the  window  twelve  by 
eighteen  inches,  without  glass,  closed  by  a  wooden  board, 
hung  on  leathern  hinges,  which  he  used  to  keep  shut. 
Through  it  he  reconnoitred  all  visitors,  and  only  admitted 
ladies  and  particular  favorites  ;  he  was  very  superstitious  ; 
ghosts,  fairies,  and  robbers  he  dreaded  most.  I  have  for- 
gotten if  I  mentioned  how  he  contrived  to  be  fed  and 
warmed.  He  had  a  small  allowance  from  the  parish  poor- 
box,  about  fifty  shillings  ;  this  was  eked  out  by  an  annual 
peregrination  through  the  parish,  when  some  gave  him 
food,  others  money,  wool,  &c,  which  he  hoarded  most  mi- 
serly. How  he  cooked  his  food  I  have  not  been  able  to 
learn,  for  his  sister,  who  lived  in  the  same  cottage  with 
him,  was  separated  by  a  stone  and  lime  wall,  and  had  a 
separate  door  of  the  usual  size,  and  window  to  match,  and 
was  never  allowed  to  enter  his  dwelling ;  but  he  brought 
home  such  loads,  that  the  shepherds  had  to  be  on  the  look- 
out for  him,  when  on  his  annual  eleemosynary  expeditions, 
to  carry  home  part  of  his  spoil.  On  one  occasion  a  servant 
was  ordered  to  give  him  some  salt,  for  containing  which 
he  carried  a  long  stocking ;  he  thought  the  damsel  had 
scrimped  him  in  quantity,  and  he  sat  and  distended  the 
stocking  till  it  appeared  less  than  half  full,  by  pressing 
down  the  salt,  and  then  called  for  the  gudewife,  showed 
't  her,  and  a^ked  if  she  had  ordered  Jenny  only  to  give 


426  THE  BLACK  DWARF'S  BONES. 

him  that  wee  pickle  saut ;  the  maid  was  scolded,  and  the 
stocking  filled.  He  spent  all  his  evenings  at  the  back  of 
the  Woodhouse  kitchen  fire,  and  got  at  least  one  meal 
every  day,  .where  he  used  to  make  the  rustics  gape  and 
stare  at  the  many  ghost,  fairy,  and  robber  stories  which 
he  had  either  heard  of  or  invented,  and  poured  out  with 
unceasing  volubility,  and  so  often  that  he  believed  them 
all  true.  But  the  Ballantyne  family  had  no  great  faith 
in  his  veracity,  when  it  suited  his  convenience  to  fib,  ex- 
aggerate, or  prevaricate,  particularly  when  excited  by  his 
own  lucubrations,  or  the  waggery  of  his  more  intellectual 
neighbors  and  companions.  He  had  a  seat  in  the  centre, 
which  he  always  occupied,  and  a  stool  for  his  deformed 
feet  and  legs ;  they  all  ro>e  at  times,  asking  Davie  to  do 
likewise,  and  when  he  got  upon  his  pins,  he  was  shorter 
than  when  sitting,  his  body  being  of  the  ordinary  length, 
and  the  deficiency  all  in  his  legs.  On  one  occasion,  a 
wag  named  Elder  put  up  a  log  of  wood  opposite  his  loop- 
hole, made  a  noise,  and  told  Davie  that  the  robbers  he 
dreaded  so  much  were  now  at  his  house,  and  would  not 
go  away ;  he  peeped  out,  and  saw  the  log,  exclaimed, 
'  So  he  is,  by  the  Lord  God  and  my  soul ;  Willie  Elder, 
gi'e  me  the  gun,  and  see  thit  she  is  weel  charged.' 
Elder  put  in  a  very  large  supply  of  powder  without  shot, 
rammed  it  hard,  got  a  stool,  which  Davie  mounted,  Elder 
handing  him  the  gun,  charging  him  to  take  time,  and  aim 
fair,  for  if  he  missed  him,  he  would  be  mad  at  being  shot 
at,  be  sure  to  come  in,  take  everything  in  the  house,  cut 
their  throats,  and  burn  the  house  after.  Davie  trem- 
blingly obeyed,  presented  the  gun  slowly  and  cautiously, 
drew  the  trigger ;  off  went  the  shot,  the  musket  re- 
bounded, and  back  went  Davie  with  a  rattle  on  the  floor. 
Some  accomplice  tumbled  the  log ;  Davie  at  length  was 


THE  BLACK  DWAEF'S   BONES.  427 

encouraged  to  look  out,  and  actually  believed  that  he  had 
shot  the  robber ;  said  he  had  done  for  him  now,  '  that  ane 
wad  plague  him  nae  mair  at  ony  rate.'  He  took  it  into 
his  head  at  one  time  that  he  ought  to  be  married,  and 
having  got  the  consent  of  a  haverel  wench  to  yoke  with 
him  in  the  silken  bonds  of  matrimony,  went  to  the  minis- 
ter several  times,  and  asked  him  to  perform  the  cere- 
mony. At  length  the  minister  sent  him  away,  saying 
that  he  could  not  and  would  not  accommodate  him  in  the 
matter.  Davie  swung  himself  out  at  the  door  on  his 
kent,  much  crestfallen,  and  in  great  wrath,  shutting  the 
door  with  a  bang  behind  him,  but  opening  it  again,  he 
shook  his  clenched  fist  in  the  parson's  face,  and  said, 
'Weel,  weel,  ye'll  no  let  decent,  honest  folk  marry  ;  but, 
'od,  lad,  1'se  plenish  your  parish  wi'  bastards,  to  see  what 
ye'll  mak  o'  that,'  and  away  he  went.  He  read  Hooke's 
Pantheon,  and  made  great  use  of  the  heathen  deities. 
He  railed  sadly  at  the  taxes ;  some  one  observed  that  he 
need  not  grumble  at  them  as  he  had  none  to  pay.  '  Hae 
I  no'  ? '  he  replied,  '  I  can  neither  get  a  pickle  snuff  to 
my  neb,  nor  a  pickle  tea  to  my  mouth,  but  they  maun 
tax  't.'  His  sister  and  he  were  on  very  unfriendly 
terms.  She  was  ill  on  one  occasion ;  Miss  Ballantyne 
asked  how  she  was  to-day.  He  replied,  '  I  dinna  ken, 
I  ha'na  been  in,  for  I  hate  folk  that  are  aye  gaun  to  dee 
and  never  do't.'  In  1811  he  was  seized  with  obstruction 
of  the  bowels  and  consequent  inflammation ;  blisters  and 
various  remedies  were  applied  for  three  days  without 
effect.  Some  one  came  to  Mrs.  Ballantyne  and  said  that 
it  was  'just  about  a'  owre  wi'  Davie  noo.'  She  went, 
and  he  breathed  his  last  almost  immediately.  His  sister 
without  any  delay,  got  his  keys,  and  went  to  his  secret 
repository,  Mrs.  Ballantyne  thought  to  get  dead-clothes, 


428  THE  BLACK  DWARF'S  BONES. 

but  instead,  to  the  amazement  of  all  present,  she  threw 
three  money-bags,  one  after  another,  into  Mrs.  Ballan- 
tyne's  lap,  telling  her  to  count  that,  and  that,  and  that 
Mrs.  B.  was  annoyed  and  astonished  at  the  multitude  of 
half-crowns  and  shillings,  all  arranged  according  to  value. 
He  hated  sixpences,  and  had  none,  but  the  third  con- 
tained four  guineas  in  gold.  Mrs.  B.  was  disgusted  with 
the  woman's  greed,  and  put  them  all  up,  saying,  what 
would  anybody  think  if  they  came  in  and  found  them 
counting  the  man's  money  and  his  breath  scarcely  out,  — 
took  it  all  home  to  her  husband,  who  made  out  £4  2s.  in 
gold,  £10  in  a  bank  receipt,  and  £7  18s.  in  shillings  and 
half-crowns,  in  all  £22.  How  did  he  get  this  ?  He  had 
many  visitors,  the  better  class  of  whom  gave  him  half- 
crowns,  others  shillings  and  sixpences ;  the  latter  he 
never  kept,  but  converted  them  into  shillings  and  half- 
crowns  whenever  he  got  an  opportunity.  I  asked  the 
wright  how  he  got  him  into  a  coffin.  He  replied,  '  Ea- 
sily ;  they  made  it  deeper  than  ordinary,  and  wider,  so  as 
to  let  in  his  distorted  legs,  as  it  was  impossible  to  streek 
him  like  others.'  He  often  expressed  a  resolve  to  be 
buried  on  the  Woodhill  top,  three  miles  up  the  water 
from  the  church-yard,  as  he  could  never  '  lie  amang  the 
common  trash  ; '  however,  this  was  not  accomplished,  as 
his  friend,  Sir  James  Nasmyth,  who  had  promised  to 
carry  this  wish  into  effect,  was  on  the  Continent  at  the 
time.  When  Sir  James  returned,  he  spoke  of  having  his 
remains  lifted  and  buried  where  he  had  wished  ;  but  this 
was  never  done,  and  the  expense  of  a  railing  and  planta- 
tion of  rowan-trees  (mountain  ash),  his  favorite  prophy- 
lactic against  the  spells  of  witches  and  fairies,  was  aban- 
doned. The  Woodhill  is  a  romantic,  green  little  mount, 
situated  at  the  west  side  of  the  Manor,  which  washes  its 


THE  BLACK  DWARF'S  BONES.  425 

base  on  the  east,  and  separates  it  from  Langhaugh 
heights,  part  of  a  lofty,  rocky,  and  heathery  mountain 
range,  and  on  the  west  is  the  ruin  of  the  ancient  peel- 
house  of  old  Posso,  long  the  residence  of  the  Nasmyth 
family.  And  now  that  we  have  the  Dwarf  dead  and 
buried,  comes  the  history  of  his  resurrection  in  1821. 
His  sister  died  exactly  ten  years  after  him.  A  report 
had  been  spread  that  he  had  been  lifted  and  taken 
to  dissecting-rooms  in  Glasgow,  which  at  that  period  was 
the  fate  of  many  a  more  seemly  corpse  than  Davie's ; 
and  the  young  men  —  for  Manor  had  no  sexton  —  who 
dug  the  sister's  grave  in  the  vicinity  of  her  brother's, 
stimulated  by  curiosity  to  see  if  his  body  had  really  been 
carried  off,  and  if  still  there  what  his  bones  were  like, 
lifted  them  up,  and  carried  them  to  TVoodhouse,  where 
they  lay  a  considerable  time,  till  they  were  sent  to  Mr. 
Ballantyne,  then  in  Glasgow.  Miss  Ballantyne  thinks 
the  skull  was  taken  away  with  the  other  bones,  but  put 
back  again.  I  have  thus  given  you  all  the  information 
I  can  gather  about  the  Black  Dwarf  that  I  think  worth 
narrating.  It  is  reported  that  he  sometimes  sold  a  gill, 
but  if  this  is  true  the  Ballantynes  never  knew  it.  Miss 
Ballantyne  says  that  he  was  not  ill-tempered,  but  on 
the  contrary,  kind,  especially  to  children.  She  and  her 
brother  were  very  young  when  she  went  to  Woodhouse, 
and  her  father  objected  to  resetting  the  farm  from  Sir 
James,  on  account  of  the  fearful  accounts  of  his  horrid 
temper  and  barbarous  deeds,  and  Sir  James  said  if  he  ever 
troubled  them  that  he  would  immediately  put  him  away ; 
but  he  was  very  fond  of  the  younger  ones,  played  with 
them,  and  amused  them,  though  when  roused  and  pro- 
voked by  grown-up  people,  he  raged,  stormed,  swore  ter 
rifically,  and  struck  with  anything  that  was  near  him,  in 


430  THE  BLACK   DWARF'S   BONES. 

short,  he  had  an  irritable  but  not  a  sulky,  sour,  misan- 
thropic temper.  The  Messrs.  Chambers  wrote  a  book 
about  him  and  his  doings  at  a  very  early  period  of  their 
literary  history.  Did  I  tell  you  of  a  female  relative, 
Niven  (whom  he  would  never  see),  saying  that  she 
would  come  and  streek  him  after  he  died  ?  He  sent 
word,  '  that  if  she  offered  to  touch  his  corpse  he  would 
rive  the  thrapple  oot  o'  her — he  would  raither  be  streek- 
it  by  Auld  Clootie's  ain  red-het  hands.'  —  Yours,  truly 
obliged,  R.  C." 

This  poor,  vindictive,  solitary,  and  powerful  creature, 
was  a  philocalist :  he  had  a  singular  love  of  flowers  and 
of  beautiful  women.  He  was  a  sort  of  Paris,  to  whom 
the  blushing  Aphrodites  of  the  glen  used  to  come,  and 
his  judgment  is  said  to  have  been  as  good,  as  the  world 
generally  thinks  that  of  CEnone's  handsome  and  faithless 
mate.  His  garden  was  full  of  the  finest  flowers,  and  it 
was  his  pleasure,  when  the  young  beauties 

"  Who  bore  the  blue  sky  intermixed  with  flame 
In  their  fair  eyes," 

came  to  him  for  their  competitive  examination,  to  scan 
them  well,  and  then,  without  one  word,  present  each 
with  a  flower,  which  was  of  a  certain  fixed  and  well- 
known  value  in  Davie's  standard  calimeter. 

I  have  heard  that  there  was  one  kind  of  rose,  his  koX- 
Xicrreiov,  which  he  was  known  to  have  given  only  to 
three,  and  I  remember  seeing  one  of  the  three,  when 
Bhe  was  past  seventy.  Margaret  Murray,  or  Morra,  was 
her  maiden  name,  and  this  fine  old  lady,  whom  an  Oxo- 
nian would  call  a  Double  First,  grave  and  silent,  and  bent 
with  "  the  pains,"  when  asked  by  us  children,  would,  with 
some  reluctance,  and  a  curious  grave  smile,  produce  out 


THE  BLACK  DWARFS   BONES.  431 

of  her  Bible,  Bowed  Davie's  withered  and  flattened  rose; 
and  from  her  looks,  even  then,  I  was  inclined  to  affirm 
the  decision  of  the  connoisseur  of  Manor  Water.  One 
can  fancy  the  scene  in  that  sweet  solitary  valley,  inform- 
ed like  its  sister  Yarrow  with  pastoral  melancholy,  with 
a  young  May,  bashful  and  eager,  presenting  herself  for 
honors,  encountering  from  under  that  penthouse  of  eye- 
brows the  steady  gaze  of  the  strange  eldritch  creature ; 
and  then  his  making  up  his  mind,  and  proceeding  to 
pluck  his  award  and  present  it  to  her,  "  herself  a  fairer 
flower,"  and  then  turning  with  a  scowl,  crossed  with  a 
look  of  tenderness,  crawl  into  his  den.  Poor  "  gloomy 
Dis,"  slinking  in  alone. 

They  say,  that  when  the  candidate  came,  he  surveyed 
her  from  his  window,  his  eyes  gleaming  out  of  the  dark- 
ness, and  if  he  liked  her  not  he  disappeared;  if  he  would 
entertain  her,  he  beckoned  her  into  the  garden. 

I  have  often  thought  that  the  Brownie,  of  whom  the 
south  country  legends  are  so  full,  must  have  been  some 
such  misshapen  creature,  strong,  willing,  and  forlorn, 
conscious  of  his  hideous  forbidding  looks,  and  ready  to 
purchase  affection  at  any  cost  of  labor,  with  a  kindly 
heart,  and  a  longing  for  human  sympathy  and  inter- 
course. Such  a  being  looks  like  the  prototype  of  the 
Aiken-Drum  of  our  infancy,  and  of  that  "  drudging  gob- 
lin." of  whom  we  all  know  how  he 

" Sweat 

To  earn  his  cream-bowl  daily  set, 
When  in  one  night,  ere  glimpse  of  morn, 
His  shadowy  flail  hath  thresh'd  the  corn, 
That  ten  day  lab'rers  could  not  end ; 
Then  lies  him  down,  the  lubber  l  fiend, 

1  Lob-lye-by-the-fire. 


432  THE  BLACK  DWABFS  ilO^ES. 

And  stretch'd  out  all  the  chimney's  length, 
Basks  at  the  fire  his  hairy  strength, 
And  cropful  out  of  doors  he  flings, 
Ere  the  first  cock  his  matin  rings." 

My  readers  will,  I  am  sure,  more  than  pardon  me  for 
giving  them  the  following  poem  on  Aiken-Drum,  foi  the 
pleasure  of  first  reading  which,  many  years  ago,  I  am 
indebted  to  Mr.  R.  Chambers's  Popular  Rhymes  of  Scot- 
land, where  its  "  extraordinary  merit "  is  generously 
acknowledged. 


THE   BROWNIE  OF  BLEDNOCH. 

There  cam'  a  strange  wicht  to  our  town-en', 
An'  the  tient  a  body  did  him  ken; 
He  tirl'd  na  lang,  but  he  glided  ben 
Wi'  a  dreary,  dreary  hum. 

His  face  did  glow  like  the  glow  o'  the  west, 
When  the  drumlie  cloud  lias  it  half  o'ercast; 
Or  the  struggling  moon  when  she's  sair  distrest, 
O  sirs !  'twas  Aiken-drum. 

I  trow  the  bauldest  stood  aback, 
Wi'  a  gape  an'  a  glow'r  till  their  lugs  did  crack, 
As  the  shapeless  phantom  mum'ling  spak, 
Hae  ye  wark  for  Aiken-drum ! 

O !  had  ye  seen  the  bairns'  fricht, 
As  they  stared  at  this  wild  and  unyirthly  wicht, 
As  they  skulkit  in  'tween  the  dark  an'  the  licht, 
An'  graned  out,  Aiken-drum ! 

"  Sauf  us!  "  quoth  Jock,  "  d'ye  see  sick  e'en  ?  " 
Cries  Kate,  "  There's  a  hole  where  a  nose  should  ha'  been; 
An'  the  mouth's  like  a  gash  that  a  horn  had  ri'en; 
Wow!  keep's  frae  Aiken-drum !  " 


THE  BLACK   DWARF'S   BONES.  433 

The  black  dog  growlin'  cow'red  his  tail, 
The  lassie  swarf  d,  loot  fa'  the  pail; 
Bob's  lingle  brack  as  he  uiendit  the  flail, 
At  the  sicht  o'  Aiken-drum. 

His  matted  head  on  his  breast  did  rest, 
A  lang  blue  beard  wan'ered  down  like  a  vest; 
But  the  glare  o'  his  e'e  hath  nae  bard  exprest, 
Nor  the  skimes  o'  Aiken-drum. 

Roun'  his  haiiy  form  there  was  naething  seen, 
But  a  philabeg  o'  the  rashes  green, 
An'  his  knotted  knees  play'd  aye  knoit  between; 
What  a  sicht  was  Aiken-drum ! 

On  his  wauchie  arms  three  claws  did  meet, 
As  they  trail'd  on  the  grun'  by  his  taeless  feet; 
E'en  the  auld  gudeman  himsel'  did  sweat, 
To  look  at  Aiken-drum. 

But  he  drew  a  score,  himsel'  did  sain, 
The  auld  wite  tried,  but  her  tongue  was  gane; 
While  the  young  ane  closer  clespit  her  wean, 
And  turn'd  frae  Aiken-drum. 

But  the  canty  auld  wife  cam  till  her  braith, 
And  she  thocht  the  Bible  micht  ward  afF  scaith ; 
Be  it  benshee,  bogle,  ghaist,  or  wraith  — 
But  it  fear'd  na  Aiken-drum. 

"  His  presence  protect  us !  "  quoth  the  auld  gudeman ; 
"  What  wad  ye,  whare  won  ye,  —  by  sea  or  by  Ian'  ? 
I  conjure  ye  —  speak  —  by  the  Beuk  in  my  han' !  " 
What  a  grane  gae  Aiken-drum ! 

"  I  lived  in  a  Ian'  whare  we  saw  nae  sky, 
I  dwalt  in  a  spot  whare  a  burn  rins  na  by; 
But  I'se  dwall  noo  wi'  you  if  ye  like  to  try  — 
Hae  ye  wark  for  Aiken  drum  V 

"  I'll  shiel  a'  your  sheep  i'  the  mornin'  sune,1 
I'll  berry  your  crap  by  the  licht  o'  the  moon, 

1  On  one  occasion,  Browne  had  undertaken  to  gather  the  sheep  into 
28 


434  THE   BLACK  DWARF'S   BONES. 

An'  ba  the  bairns  wi'  an  unkenn'd  tune, 
If  ye' 11  keep  puir  Aiken-drum. 

"  I'll  loup  the  linn  when  ye  canna  wade, 
I'll  kirn  the  kirn,  an'  I'll  turn  the  bread; 
An'  the  wildest  fillie  that  e'er  ran  rede 
I'se  tame't,'  quoth  Aiken-drum! 

"  To  wear  the  tod  frae  the  flock  on  the  fell  — 
To  gather  the  dew  frae  the  heather-bell  — 
An'  to  look  at  my  face  in  your  clear  crystal  well, 
Micht  gie  pleasure  to  Aiken-drum. 

"  I'se  seek  nae  guids,  gear,  bond,  nor  mark ; 
I  use  nae  beddin1,  shoon,  nor  sark; 
But  a  cogfu'  o'  brose  'tween  the  licht  an'  the  dark 
Is  the  wage  o'  Aiken-drum.'' 

Quoth  the  wylie  auld  wife,  "  The  thing  speaks  weel; 
Our  workers  are  scant  —  we  hae  routh  o'  meal; 
Giff  he'll  do  as  he  says  —  be  he  man,  be  he  de'il, 
Wow !  we'll  try  this  Aiken-drum." 

But  the  wenches  skirl'd,  "  He's  no'  be  here ! 
His  eldritch  look  gars  us  swarf  wi'  fear; 
An'  the  feint  a  ane  will  the  house  come  near, 
If  they  think  but  o'  Aiken-drum. 

"  For  a  foul  and  a  stalwart  ghaist  is  he, 
Despair  sits  broodin'  aboon  his  e'e-bree, 
And  unchancie  to  light  o'  a  maiden's  e'e, 
Is  the  glower  o'  Aiken-drum." 

"  Puir  clipmalabors !  ye  hae  little  wit; 
Is't  na  hallowmas  noo,  an'  the  crap  out  yet  ?  " 
Sae  she  seelenc'd  them  a'  wi'  a  stamp  o'  her  fit, 
"  Sit-yer-wa's-down,  Aiken-drum." 

the  bught  by  an  early  hour,  and  so  zealously  did  he  perform  his  task, 
that  not  only  was  there  not  one  sheep  left  on  the  hill,  but  he  had  also 
collected  a  number  of  hares,  which  were  found  fairly  penned  along  with 
them.  Upon  being  congratulated  on  his  extraordinary  success,  Brownie 
exel  limed,  "  Confound  thae  wee  gray  anes!  they  cost  me  mair  trouble 
than  a'  the  lave  o'  them." 


THE  BLACK  DWARF'S   BONES.  435 

Roun'  a'  that  side  what  wark  was  dune, 
By  the  streamer's  gleam,  or  the  glance  o'  the  moon; 
A  word,  or  a  wish  —  an'  the  Brownie  cam  sune, 
Sae  helpfu'  was  Aiken-dmm. 

But  he  slade  aye  awa  or  the  sun  was  up, 
He  ne'er  could  look  straught  on  Macmillan's  cup; l 
They  watch'd  —  but  nane  saw  him  his  brose  ever  sup 
Nor  a  spune  sought  Aiken-drum. 

On  Blednoch  banks,  an'  on  crystal  Cree, 
For  mony  a  day  a  toil'd  wicht  was  he; 
And  the  bairns  they  play'd  harmless  roun'  his  knee, 
Sae  social  was  Aiken-drum. 

But  a  new-made  wife,  fu'  o'  rippish  freaks, 
Fond  o'  a'  things  feat  for  the  tive  first  weeks, 
Laid  a  mouldy  pair  o'  her  ain  man's  breeks 
By  the  brose  o'  Aiken-drum. 

Let  the  learn' d  decide  when  they  convene, 
What  spell  was  him  an'  the  breeks  between; 
For  frae  that  day  forth  he  was  nae  mair  seen, 
An'  sair  miss'd  was  Aiken-drum. 

He  was  heard  by  a  herd  gaun  by  the  Thrieve, 
Crying,  "  Lang,  lung  now  may  I  greet  an'  grieve; 
For  alas!  I  hae  gotten  baith  fee  an'  leave, 
0  luckless  Aiken-drum!  " 

Awa !  ye  wrangling  sceptic  tribe, 
Wi'  your  pro's  an'  your  con's  wad  ye  decide 
'Gainst  the  'sponsible  voice  o'  a  hale  country-side 
On  the  facts  'bout  Aiken-drum? 

i  A  communion  cup,  belonging  to  M'Millan,  the  well-known  ousted 
minister  of  Balmaghie,  and  founder  of  the  sect  of  Covenanters  of  hia 
name.  This  cup  was  treasured  by  a  zealous  disciple  in  the  parish  of 
Kirkcowan,  and  long  used  as  a  test  by  which  to  ascertain  the  ortho- 
doxy of  suspected  persons.  If,  on  taking  it  into  his  hand,  the  person' 
trembled,  or  gave  other  symptoms  of  agitation,  he  was  denounced 
as  having  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal,  and  sacrificed  at  the  altar  of 
idolatry. 


436  THE  BLACK   DWARF'S   BONES. 

Tho'  the  "  Brownie  o'  Blednoch  "  lang  be  gane, 
The  mark  o'  his  feet's  left  on  raony  a  stane; 
An'  mony  a  wife  an'  mony  a  wean 
Tell  the  feats  o'  Aiken-drum. 

E'en  now,  licht  loons  that  jibe  an'  sneer 
At  spiritual  guests  an'  a'  sic  gear, 
At  the  Glasuock  mill  hae  swat  wi'  fear, 
An'  look'd  roun'  for  Aiken-drum. 

An'  guidly  folks  hae  gotten  a  fricht, 
When  the  moon  was  set,  an'  the  stars  gaed  nac  licht, 
At  the  roaring  linn  in  the  howe  o'  the  nicht, 
Wi'  suffhs  like  Aiken-drum. 


We  would  rather  have  written  these  lines  than  any 
amount  of  Aurora  Leighs,  Festuses,  or  such  like,  with 
all  their  mighty  "  somethingness,"  as  Mr.  Bailey  would 
say.  For  they,  are  they  not  the  "  native  wood-notes 
wild"  of  one  of  nature's  darlings?  Here  is  the  inde- 
scribable, inestimable,  unmistakable  impress  of  genius. 
Chaucer,  had  he  been  a  Galloway  man,  might  have  writ- 
ten it,  only  he  would  have  been  more  garrulous,  and  less 
compact  and  stern.  It  is  like  Tam  o'  Shanter,  in  its  liv- 
ing union  of  the  comic,  the  pathetic,  and  the  terrible. 
Shrewdness,  tenderness,  imagination,  fancy,  humor,  word- 
music,  dramatic  power,  even  wit  —  all  are  here.  I  have 
often  read  it  aloud  to  children,  and  it  is  worth  any  one's 
while  to  do  it.  You  will  find  them  repeating  all  over 
the  house  for  days  such  lines  as  take  their  heart  and 
tongue. 

The  author  of  this  noble  ballad  was  William  Nichol- 
son, the  Galloway  poet,  as  he  was,  and  is  still  called  in 
his  own  district.  He  was  born  at  Tanimaus,  in  the 
parish  of  Borgue,  in  August  1783  ;   he  died  circa  1848, 


THE  BLACK  DWARF'S   BONES.  437 

unseen,  like  a  bird.  Being  extremely  short-sighted,  he 
was  unfitted  for  being  a  shepherd  or  ploughman,  and 
began  life  as  a  packman,  like  the  hero  of  "  the  Excur- 
sion ; "  and  is  still  remembered  in  that  region  for  his 
humor,  his  music,  his  verse,  and  his  ginghams ;  and  also, 
alas !  for  his  misery  and  his  sin.  After  travelling  the 
country  for  thirty  years,  he  became  a  packless  pedler, 
and  fell  into  "  a  way  of  drinking  ;  "  this  led  from  bad  to 
worse,  and  the  grave  closed  in  gloom  over  the  ruins  of  a 
man  of  true  genius.  Mr.  M'Diarmid  of  Dumfries  pre- 
fixed a  memoir  of  him  to  the  Second  Edition  of  his 
Tales  in  Verse  and  Miscellaneous  Poems.  These  are 
scarcely  known  out  of  Galloway,  but  they  are  worth  the 
knowing ;  none  of  them  have  the  concentration  and 
nerve  of  the  Brownie,  but  they  are  from  the  same  brain 
and  heart.  "  The  Country  Lass,"  a  long  poem,  is  ex- 
cellent ;  with  much  of  Crabbe's  power  and  compression. 
This,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  volume,  is  in  the  Scot- 
tish dialect,  but  there  is  a  Fable  —  the  Butterfly  and 
Bee — the  English  and  sense,  the  fine,  delicate  humor 
and  turn  of  which  might  have  been  Cowper's  ;  and  there 
is  a  bit  of  rugged  sarcasm  called  "  Siller,"  which  Burns 
need  not  have  been  ashamed  of.  Poor  Nicholson,  be- 
sides his  turn  for  verse,  was  an  exquisite  musician,  and 
sang  with  a  powerful  and  sweet  voice.  One  may  imag- 
ine the  delight  of  a  lonely  town-end,  when  "Willie  the 
packman  and  the  piper  made  his  appearance,  with  his 
stories,  and  jokes,  and  ballads,  his  songs,  and  reels,  and 
''  wanton  wiles." 

There  is  one  story  about  him  which  has  always  ap- 
peared to  me  quite  perfect.  A  farmer,  in  a  remote  part 
of  Galloway,  one  June  morning  before  sunrise,  wag 
awakened  by  music ;  he  had  been  dreaming  of  heaven, 


438  THE  BLACK  DWARF'S  BOXES. 

and  when  he  found  himself  awake,  he  still  heard  the 
strains.  He  looked  out,  and  saw  no  one,  but  at  the 
corner  of  a  grass-field  he  saw  his  cattle,  and  young  colts 
and  fillies,  huddled  together,  and  looking  intently  down 
into  what  he  knew  was  an  old  quarry.  He  put  on  his 
clothes,  and  walked  across  the  field,  everything  but  that 
strange  wild  melody,  still  and  silent  in  this  the  "  sweet 
hour  of  prime."  As  he  got  nearer  the  "  beasts,"  the 
sound  was  louder ;  the  colts  with  their  long  manes,  and 
the  nowt  with  their  wondering  stare,  took  no  notice  of 
him,  straining  their  necks  forward  entranced.  There, 
in  the  old  quarry,  the  young  sun  "  glintin  "  on  his  face, 
and  resting  on  his  pack,  which  had  been  his  pillow,  was 
our  Wandering  Willie,  playing  and  singing  like  an  angel 
—  "  an  Orpheus  ;  an  Orpheus."  What  a  picture  !  When 
reproved  for  wasting  his  health  and  time  by  the  prosaic 
farmer,  the  poor  fellow  said :  "  Me  and  this  quarry  are 
lang  acquant,  and  I've  mair  pleesure  in  pipin  to  thae 
daft  cowts.  than  if  the  best  leddies  in  the  land  were 
figurin   away  afore  me." 


NOTES    ON  ART. 


"  The  use  of  this  feigned  history  "  ((he  Ideal  Arts  of  Poesy,  Painting, 
Music,  cfc.)  "hath  been  to  give  some  shadow  of  satisfaction  to 

THE    MIND   OF   MAN    IN    THESE    POINTS   WHEREIN    THE    NATURE    OF 

things  doth  deny  it,  the  world  being  in  proportion  inferior  to  the 
soul;  by  reason  whereof,  there  is,  agreeable  to  the  spirit  of  man,  a  more 

AMPLE  GREATNESS,  A  MORE  EXACT  GOODNESS  AND  A  MORE  AB- 
SOLUTE variety,  than  can  be  found  in  the  nature  of  things.  So  it 
appearelh  that  Poesy"  (and  the  others)  "  serveth  and  conferreth  to  mag- 
nanimity, morality,  and  to  delectation.  And  therefore  it  was  even  thought 
to  have  some  participation  of  divineness  because  it  doth  raise  and  di- 
rect THE  MIND.  BY  SUBMITTING  THE  SHEWS  OF  THINGS  TO  THE  DE- 
SIRES of  the  mind;  whereas  reason  (science,  philosophy)  doth  "buckle 
and  bow  the  mind  to  the  nature  of  things."  —  Of  the  Proficiencb 

AND  ADVANCEMENT  OF   LEARNING. 

"  To  look  on  noble  forms 
Makes  noble  through  the  sensuous  organism 
That  which  is  higher."  —  The  Princess. 


NOTES  ON  ART.1 


NE  evening  in  the  spring  of  1846,  as  my  wife 
and  I  were  sitting  at  tea,  Parvula  in  bed, 
and  the  Sputchard  reposing,  as  was  her  wont, 
with  her  rugged  little  brown  forepaws  over 
the  edge  of  the  fender,  her  eyes  shut,  toasting,  and  all 
but  roasting  herself  at  the  fire, — a  note  was  brought  in, 
which  from  its  fat,  soft  look,  by  a  hopeful  and  not  un- 
skilled palpation  I  diagnosed  as  that  form  of  lucre  which 
in  Scotland  may  well  be  called  filthy.  I  gave  it  across 
to  Madam,  who,  opening  it,  discovered  four  five-pound 
notes,  and  a  letter  addressed  to  me.  She  gave  it  me. 
It  was  from  Hugh  Miller,  editor  of  the  Witness  news- 
paper, asking  me  to  give  him  a  notice  of  the  Exhibi- 
tion of  the  Scottish  Academy  then  open,  in  words  I  now 
forget,  but  which  were  those  of  a  thorough  gentleman, 
and  enclosing  the  aforesaid  fee.  I  can  still  remember, 
or  indeed  feel  the  kind  of  shiver,  half  of  fear  and  pleas- 
ure, on  encountering  this  temptation ;  but  I  soon  said, 
"  You  know  I  can't  take  this ;  I  can't  write  ;  I  never 
wrote  a  word  for  the  press."  She,  with  "  wifelike  gov- 
ernment," kept  the  money,  and  heartened  me  to  write, 
and  write  I  did  but  with  awful  sufferings  and  difficulty, 
and  much  destruction  of  sleep.     I  think  the  only  person 

1  Originally  prefixed  to  a  Criticism  on  some  paintings  in  the  Scot- 
tish Academy. 


442  NOTES   ON  ART. 

who  suffered  still  more  must  have  been  the  compositor 
Had  this  packet  not  come  in,  and  come  in  when  it  did, 
and  had  the  Sine  Qua  Non  not  been  peremptory  and 
retentive,  there  are  many  chances  to  one  I  might  never 
have  plagued  any  printer  with  my  bad  hand  and  my 
endless  corrections,  and  general  incoherency  in  all  trans- 
actions as  to  proofs. 

I  tell  this  small  story,  partly  for  my  own   pleasure, 
and  as  a  tribute  to  that  remarkable  man,  who  stands 
alongside  of  Burns,  and  Scott,  Chalmers,  and   Carlyle, 
the  foremost  Scotsmen  of  their  time,  —  a  rough,  almost 
rugged  nature,  shaggy  with  strength,  clad  with  zeal  as 
with  a  cloak,  in  some  things  sensitive  and  shamefaced  as 
a  girl ;  moody  and  self-involved,  but  never  selfish,  full  of 
courage,  and  of  keen  insight  into  nature  and  men,  and 
the  principles  of  both,  but  simple  as  a  child  in  the  ways 
of  the  world ;    self-taught  and   self-directed,  argumenta- 
tive and  scientific,  as  few  men  of  culture  have  ever  been, 
and   yet   with    more    imagination    than   either  logic   or 
knowledge  ;    to  the  last  as  shy  and  Mate  as  when  work- 
ing in   the  quarries  at  Cromarty.     In  his  life  a  noble 
example  of  what  our  breed  can  produce,  of  what  energy, 
honesty,  intensity,  and  genius  can   achieve  ;  and  in  his 
death  a  terrible  example  of  that  revenge  which  the  body 
takes  upon  the  soul  when  brought  to  bay  by  its  inex- 
orable taskmaster.     I  need  say  no  more.     His  story  is 
more  tragic  than  any  tragedy.     Would  to  God  it  may 
warn  those  who  come  after  to  be  wise  in  time,  to  take 
the  same  —  I  ask  no  more  —  care  of  their  body,  which 
is  their  servant,  their  beast  of  burden,  as  they  would 
of  their  horse. 

Few  men  are  endowed  with  such  a  brain  as  Hugh 
Miller  —  huge,  active,  concentrated,  keen  to  fierceness 


NOTES   ON   ART.  443 

and  therefore  few  men  need  fear,  even  if  they  misuse 
and  overtask  theirs  as  he  did,  that  it  will  turn,  as  it  did 
with  him,  and  rend  its  master.  But  as  assuredly  as 
there  is  a  certain  weight  which  a  bar  of  iron  will  bear 
and  no  more,  so  is  there  a  certain  weight  of  work  which 
the  organ  by  which  we  act,  by  which  we  think,  and  feel, 
and  will  —  cannot  sustain,  blazing  up  into  brief  and  ruin- 
ous madness,  or  sinking  into  idiocy.  At  the  time  he 
wrote  to  me,  Mr.  Miller  and  I  were  strangers,  and  I 
don't  think  I  ever  spoke  to  him:  but  his  manner  of  doing 
the  above  act  made  me  feel,  that  in  that  formidable  and 
unkempt  nature  there  lay  the  delicacy,  the  generosity, 
the  noble  trustfulness  of  a  gentleman  born  —  not  made. 

Most  men  have,  and  almost  every  man  should  have  a 
hobby  :  it  is  exercise  in  a  mild  way,  and  does  not  take 
him  away  from  home  ;  it  diverts  him ;  and  by  having 
a  double  line  of  rails,  he  can  manage  to  keep  the  per- 
manent way  in  good  condition.  A  man  who  has  only 
one  object  in  life,  only  one  line  of  rails,  who  exercises 
only  one  set  of  faculties,  and  these  only  in  one  way,  will 
wear  himself  out  much  sooner  than  a  man  who  shunts 
himself  every  now  and  then,  and  who  has  trains  coming 
as  well  as  going ;  who  takes  in  as  well  as  gives  out. 

My  hobby  has  always  been  pictures,  and  all  we  call 
Art.  I  have  fortunately  never  been  a  practitioner, 
though  I  think  I  could  have  made  a  tolerable  hand  ;  but 
unless  a  man  is  a  thoroughly  good  artist,  he  injures  his 
enjoyment,  generally  speaking,  of  the  art  of  others.  I 
am  convinced,  however,  that  to  enjoy  art  thoroughly, 
every  man  must  have  in  him  the  possibility  of  doing  it 
as  well  as  liking  it.  He  must  feel  it  in  his  fingers,  as 
well  as  in  his  head  and  at  his  eyes ;  and  it  must  find  its 
way  from  all  the  three  to  his  heart,  and  be  emotive. 


444  NOTES  ON  ART. 

Much  has  been  said  of  the  power  of  Art  to  refine 
men,  to  soften  their  manners,  and  make  them  less  of 
wild  beasts.  Some  have  thought  it  omnipotent  for  this ; 
others  have  given  it  as  a  sign  of  the  decline  and  fall  of 
the  nobler  part  of  us.  Neither  is,  and  both  are  true. 
Art  does,  as  our  Laureate  says,  make  nobler  in  us  what 
is  higher  than  the  senses  through  which  it  passes ;  but 
it  can  only  make  nobler  what  is  already  noble  ;  it  can- 
not regenerate,  neither  can  it  of  itself  debase  and  emas- 
culate  and  bedevil  mankind ;  but  it  is  a  symptom,  and  a 
fatal  one,  when  Art  ministers  to  a  nation's  vice,  and  glo- 
rifies its  naughtiness  —  as  in  old  Rome,  as  in  Oude  —  as 
also  too  much  in  places  nearer  in  time  and  place  than  the 
one  and  the  other.  The  truth  is,  Art,  unless  quickened 
from  above  and  from  within,  has  in  it  nothing  beyond 
itself,  which  is  visible  beauty  —  the*  ministration  to  the 
lust,  the  desire  of  the  eye.  But  apart  from  direct  spirit- 
ual worship,  and  self-dedication  to  the  Supreme,  I  do  not 
know  any  form  of  ideal  thought  and  feeling  which  may 
be  made  more  truly  to  subserve,  not  only  magnanimity, 
but  the  purest  devotion  and  godly  fear  ;  by  fear  meaning 
that  mixture  of  love  and  awe,  which  is  specific  of  the 
realization  of  our  relation  to  God.  I  am  not  so  silly  as 
to  seek  painters  to  paint  religious  pictures  in  the  usual 
sense;  for  the  most  part,  I  know  nothing  so  profoundly 
profane  and  godless  as  our  sacred  pictures  ;  and  I  can't 
6ay  I  like  our  religious  beliefs  to  be  symbolized,  even  as 
Mr.  Hunt  has  so  grandly  done  in  his  picture  of  the  Light 
of  the  World.  But  if  a  painter  is  himself  religious  ;  if 
he  feels  God  in  what  he  is  looking  at,  and  in  what  he  is 
rendering  back  on  his  canvas ;  if  he  is  impressed  with 
the  truly  divine  beauty,  infinity,  perfection,  and  meaning 
of  unspoiled  material  nature  —  the  earth  and  the  fulnesa 


NOTES   ON  ART.  445 

thereof,  the  heaven  and  all  its  hosts,  the  strength  of  the 
hills,  the  sea  and  all  that  is  therein ;  if  he  is  himself  im 
pressed  with  the  divine  origin  and  divine  end  of  all  visi- 
ble things,  —  then  will  he  paint  religious  pictures  and 
impress  men  religiously,  and  thus  make  good  men  listen, 
and  possibly  make  bad  men  good.  Take  the  landscapes 
of  our  own  Harvey.  He  is  my  dear  old  friend  of  thirty 
years,  and  his  power  as  a  painter  is  only  less  than  his 
fidelity  and  ardor  as  a  friend,  and  that  than  his  simple, 
deep-hearted  piety ;  I  never  see  one  of  his  transcripts  of 
nature,  be  they  solemn  and  full  of  gloom,  with  a  look 
"  that  threatens  the  profane  ; "  or  laughing  all  over  with 
sunshine  and  gladness,  but  I  feel  something  beyond, 
something  greater  and  more  beautiful  than  their  great- 
ness and  their  beauty  —  the  idea  of  God,  of  the  begin- 
ning and  the  ending,  the  first  and  the  last,  the  living 
One ;  of  whom,  and  through  whom,  and  to  whom  are 
all  things ;  who  is  indeed  God  over  all,  blessed  forever ; 
and  whom  I  would  desire,  in  all  humbleness  of  mind, 
to  sanctify  in  my  heart,  and  to  make  my  fear  and  my 
dread.  This  is  the  true  moral  use  of  Art,  to  quicken 
and  deepen  and  enlarge  our  sense  of  God.  I  don't 
mean  so  much  our  belief  in  certain  articulate  doctrines, 
though  I  am  old-fashioned  enough  to  think  that  we  must 
know  what  as  well  as  in  whom  we  believe  —  that  our 
religion,  like  everything  else,  must  "have  its  seat  in  rea- 
son, and  be  judicious  ; "  I  refer  rather  to  that  temper  of 
the  soul,  that  mood  of  the  mind  in  which  we  feel  the  un- 
seen and  eternal,  and  bend  under  the  power  of  the  world 
to  come. 

In  my  views  as  to  the  office  of  the  State  I  hold  with 
John  Locke  and  Coventry  Dick,1  that  its  primary,  and 

1  In  the  thin  octavo,  The  Office  of  the  Slate,  and  in  its  twin  volume 


446  NOTES   ON  ART. 

probably  its  only  function  is  to  protect  us  from  our  ene 
mies  and  from  ourselves  ;  that  to  it  is  intrusted  by  the 
people  "  the  regulation  of  physical  force  ;  "  and  that  it  ia 
indeed  little  more  than  a  transcendental  policeman.  This 
is  its  true  sphere,  and  here  lies  its  true  honor  and  glory. 
"When  it  intermeddles  with  other  things,  —  from  your  Re- 
ligion, Education,  and  Art,  down  to  the  number,  and  size, 
and  metal  of  your  buttons,  it  goes  out  of  its  line  and 
fails ;  and  I  am  convinced  that  with  some  benefits,  spe- 
cious and  partial,  our  Government  interference  has,  in 
the  main  and  in  the  long  run,  done  harm  to  the  real 
interests  of  Art.  Spontaneity,  the  law  of  free  choice,  is 
as  much  the  life  of  Art  as  it  is  of  marriage,  and  it  is  not 
less  beyond  the  power  of  the  State  to  choose  the  nation's 
pictures,  than  to  choose  its  wives.  Indeed  there  is  a 
great  deal  on  the  physiological  side  to  be  said  for  law 
interfering  in  the  matter  of  matrimony.  I  would  cer- 
tainly make  it  against  law,  as  it  plainly  is  against  nature, 
for  cousins-german  to  marry  ;  and  if  we  could  pair  our- 
selves as  we  pair  our  live  stock,  and  give  ear  to  the 
teaching  of  an  enlightened  zoonomy,  we  might  soon  drive 
many  of  our  fellest  diseases  out  of  our  breed ;  but  the 
law  of  personality,  of  ultroneousness,  of  free  will,  that 
which  in  a  great  measure  makes  us  what  we  are,  steps  in 
and  forbids  anything  but  the  convincement  and  force  of 

on  Church  Polity,  there  will  be  found  in  clear,  strong,  and  singularly- 
candid  language,  the  first  lines  of  the  sciences  of  Church  and  State 
yilitics.  It  does  not  say  much  for  the  sense  and  perspicuity  of  the 
public  mind,  if  two  such  books  are  allowed  to  fall  aside,  and  such  a 
farrago  of  energetic  nonsense  and  error  as  Mr.  Buckle's  first,  and  we 
trust  last,  volume  on  Civilization,  is  read  and  admired,  and  bought, 
with  its  bad  logic,  its  bad  facts,  and  its  bad  conclusions.  In  bulk  and 
m  value  his  volume  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  Mr.  Dick's,  as  a 
handful,  I  may  say  a  gowpen  of  chaff  does  to  a  grain  of  wheat,  or  a 
bushel  of  sawdust  to  an  ounce  of  meal. 


NOTES  ON  ART.  447 

reason.  Much  in  the  same  way,  though  it  be  a  more 
trivial  matter,  pleasure,  in  order  to  please,  must  be  that 
which  you  yourself  choose.  You  cannot  make  an  Es- 
quimaux forswear  train  oil,  and  take  to  tea  and  toast  like 
ourselves,  still  less  to  boiled  rice  like  a  Hindoo  ;  neither 
can  you  all  at  once  make  a  Gilmerton  carter  prefer  Raph- 
ael and  claret  to  a  glass  of  raw  whiskey  and  the  Terrific 
Register.  Leviathan  is  not  so  tamed  or  taught.  And 
our  Chadwicks  and  Kaye  Shuttleworths  and  Coles  — • 
kings  though  they  may  be  —  enlightened,  energetic,  ear- 
nest, and  as  full  of  will  as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat,  cannot 
in  a  generation  make  the  people  of  England  as  intelligent 
as  themselves,  or  as  fond  and  appreciative  of  the  best 
Art  as  Mr.  Ruskin.  Hence  all  their  plans  are  failing 
and  must  fail ;  and  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  in  the 
case  of  Art,  the  continuance  of  the  Cole  dynasty  is  not 
to  be  prayed  for  very  much.  As  far  as  I  can  judge,  it 
has  done  infinitely  more  harm  than  good.  These  men 
think  they  are  doing  a  great  work,  and,  worse  still,  the 
country  thinks  so  too,  and  helps  them,  whereas  I  believe 
they  are  retarding  the  only  wholesome,  though  slow 
growth  of  knowledge  and  taste. 

Take  the  Kensington  Museum :  the  only  thing  there 
(I  speak  in  all  seriousness)  worth  any  man  spending  an 
hour  or  a  shilling  upon,  are  the  Sheepshank  and  Turner 
galleries  ;  all  those  costly,  tawdry,  prodigious,  and  petty 
displays  of  arts  and  manufactures,  I  look  upon  as  mere 
delusions  and  child's  play.  Take  any  one  of  them,  say 
the  series  illustrating  the  cotton  fabrics ;  you  see  the 
whole  course  of  cotton  from  its  Alpha  to  its  Omega,  in 
the  neatest  and  prettiest  way.  What  does  that  teach? 
what  impression  does  that  make  upon  any  young  mind  ? 
Little  beyond  mere  vapid  wonder.  The  eye  is  opened, 
but  not  filled  ;  it  is  a  stare,  not  a  look. 


448  NOTES  ON  AKT. 

If  you  want  to  move,  and  permanently  rivet,  a  young 
mind  with  what  is  worth  the  knowing,  with  what  is  to 
deepen  his  sense  of  the  powers  of  the  human  mind,  and 
the  resources  of  nature,  and  the  grandeur  of  his  coun- 
try, take  him  to  a  cotton-mill.  Let  him  hear  and  come 
under  the  power  of  that  wonderful  sound  pervading  the 
whole  vast  house,  and  filling  the  air  with  that  diapason 
of  regulated,  harmonious  energy.  Let  him  enter  it,  and 
go  round  with  a  skilled  workman,  and  then  follow  the 
Alpha  through  all  its  marvellous  transformations  to  the 
Omega  ;  do  this,  and  you  bring  him  out  into  the  fresh  air 
not  only  more  knowing,  but  more  wise.  He  has  got  a 
lesson.  He  has  been  impressed.  The  same  with  cal- 
ico-printing, and  pottery,  and  iron-founding,  and,  indeed, 
the  whole  round  of  that  industry  which  is  our  glory. 
Do  you  think  a  boy  will  get  half  the  good  from  the 
fine  series  of  ores  and  specimens  of  pig-iron,  and  all 
the  steels  he  may  see  in  cold  blood,  and  with  his  grand- 
mother or  his  sweetheart  beside  him  at  Kensington,  that 
he  will  from  going  into  Dixon's  foundry  at  Govan,  and 
seeing  the  half-naked  men  toiling  in  that  place  of  flame 
and  energy  and  din  —  watching  the  mighty  shears  and 
the  Nasmyth-hammers,  and  the  molten  iron  kneaded  like 
dough,  and  planed  and  shaved  like  wood ;  he  gets  the 
dead  and  dissected  body  in  the  one  case;  he  sees  and 
feels  the  living  spirit  and  body  working  as  one,  in  the 
other.  And  upon  all  this  child's-play,  this  mere  make-be- 
lieve, our  good-natured  nation  is  proud  of  spending  some 
half-million  of  money.  Then  there  is  that  impertinent, 
useless,  and  unjust  system  of  establishing  Government 
Schools  of  Design  in  so  many  of  our  towns,  avowedly, 
and,  I  believe  (though  it  is  amazing  that  clever  men 
should  do  such  a  foolish  thing),  honestly,  for  the  good 
of  the  working-classes,  but  actually  and  lamentably,  and 


NOTES  ON  ART.  449 

in  every  way  harmfully,  for  the  amusement  and  benefit 
of  the  wealthy  classes,  and  to  the  ruin  of  the  hard-work- 
ing and  legitimate  local  teachers. 

I  have  not  time  or  space,  but  if  I  had  I  could  prove 
this,  and  show  the  curiously  deep  injuries  this  system  is 
inflicting  on  true  Art,  and  upon  the  freedom  of  industry. 

In  the  same  line,  and  to  the  same  effect,  are  our  Art- 
Unions  and  Associations  for  "  the  encouragement "  of 
Art ;  some  less  bad  than  others,  but  all  bad,  because 
founded  upon  a  wrong  principle,  and  working  to  a 
wrong  end.  No  man  can  choose  a  picture  for  another, 
any  more  than  a  wife  or  a  waistcoat.  It  is  part  of  our 
essential  nature  to  choose  these  things  for  ourselves, 
and  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  the  wife  and  the  waist- 
coat and  the  work  of  Art  our  departmental  wiseacres 
may  least  approve  of,  if  chosen  sua  sponte  by  Giles 
or  Roger,  will  not  only  give  them  more  delectation,  but 
do  them  more  good,  than  one  chosen  by  somebody  else 
for  him  upon  the  finest  of  all  possible  principles.  Be- 
sides this  radical  vice,  these  Art-Unions  have  the  effect 
of  encouraging,  and  actually  bringing  into  professional 
existence,  men  who  had  much  better  be  left  to  die  out, 
or  never  be  born ;  and  it,  as  I  well  know,  discourages, 
depreciates,  and  dishonors  the  best  men,  besides  keep- 
ing the  public,  which  is  the  only  true  and  worthy  pa- 
tron, from  doing  its  duty,  and  getting  its  due.  Just 
take  our  Edinburgh  Association,  in  many  respects  one 
of  the  best,  having  admirable  and  devoted  men,  as  its 
managers,  what  is  the  chance  that  any  of  the  thousand 
members,  when  he  draws  a  prize,  gets  a  picture  he 
cares  one  straw  for,  or  which  will  do  his  nature  one 
particle  of  good  ?  "Why  should  we  be  treated  in  this 
matter,  as  we  are  treated  in  no  way  else  ?  Who  thinks 
29 


450  NOTES   ON   ART. 

of  telling  us,  or  founding  a  Royal  Association  with  all 
its  officers,  to  tell  us  what  novels  or  what  poetry  to  read, 
or  what  music  to  listen  to  ?  Think  of  a  Union  for  the 
encouragement  of  Poetry,  where  Mr.  Tennyson  would 
be  obliged  to  put  in  his  In  Memoriam  or  his  Idylls  of 
the  King,  along  with  the  Lyrics  and  the  Sonnets  of  we 
don't  say  who,  into  a  common  lottery,  and  be  drawn 
for  at  an  annual  speechifying  ?  All  such  associations  go 
to  encourage  quantity  rather  than  quality.  Now,  in  the 
ideal  and  pleasurable  arts  quality  is  nearly  everything. 
Our  Turner  not  only  transcends  ten  thousand  Claudes 
and  Vanderveldes  ;  he  is  in  another  sphere.  You  could 
not  thus  sum  up  his  worth. 

One  of  the  most  flagrant  infractions  of  the  primary 
laws  of  political  economy,  and  one  of  the  most  curious 
illustrations  of  the  fashionable  fallacies  as  to  Govern- 
ment encouragement  to  Art,  is  to  be  found  in  the  rev- 
elations in  the  Report  of  the  Select  Committee  on  the 
South  Kensington  Museum.  Mr.  Lowe,  and  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Committee,  gave  it  as  their  opinion,  that 
Government  should  deal  in  photographs,  and  undersell 
them  (thereby  ruining  the  regular  trade),  and  all  for  the 
encouragement  of  Art,  and  the  enlightenment  of  the  pub- 
lic !  Can  there  be  anything  more  absurd  than  this,  and 
at  this  time  of  day  ?  and  not  only  absurd  and  expensive, 
but  mischievous.  All  this,  you  see,  would  be  avoided, 
and  society  left  to  provide  its  own  Art,  as  it  provides 
its  own  beef  and  trousers  for  itself;  if  men  would  hold 
with  John  Locke,  and  Coventry  Dick,  and  Egomet,  that 
the  Government,  the  State,  has  simply  nothing  to  do  with 
these  things,  that  they  are  ultra  vires  not  less  than  relig- 
•on,  and,  I  am  bold  to  add,  education. 

One  other  drawback  to  Art  taking  its  place  alongside 


NOTES   ON  ART.  451 

its  sisters  —  Poetry  and  Music  —  is  the  annual  exhibi- 
tions. Nothing  more  thoroughly  barbarous  and  child- 
ish could  be  devised  than  this  concentrating  the  mental 
activity  of  the  nation  in  regard  to  the  Art  of  the  year 
upon  one  month.  Fancy  our  being  obliged  to  read  all 
our  novels,  and  all  our  poetry,  and  hear  all  our  music 
in  a  segment  of  our  year.  Then  there  is  the  mixing 
up  of  all  sorts  of  pictures  —  sacred  and  profane,  gay  and 
sombre,  etc.  —  all  huddled  together,  and  the  eye  flitting 
from  one  to  the  other.1  Hence  the  temptation  to  paint 
down  to  the  gaudiest  pictures,  instead  of  up  or  into  the 
pure  intensity  of  nature.  Why  should  there  not  be 
some  large  public  hall  to  which  artists  may  send  their 
pictures  at  any  time  when  they  are  perfected ;  but  bet- 
ter still,  let  purchasers  frequent  the  studios,  as  they  did 
of  old,  full  of  love  and  knowledge.  Why  will  we  in- 
sist in  pressing  our  Art  and  our  taste,  as  we  did  long 
ago  our  religion  and  our  God,  upon  our  neighbors ! 
Why  not  trust  to  time,  and  to  cultivating  our  own  tastes 
earnestly,  thoroughly,  humbly,  and  for  ourselves,  filling 
our  houses  with  the  best  of  everything,  and  making  all 
welcome  to  see  them,  and  believing  that  the  grandchil- 
dren of  those  who  come  to  see  our  Turners  and  Wilkies 
and  Hogarths  will  be  wiser  and  more  refined  than  we  ? 
It  is  most  lamentable  to  witness  the  loss  of  money,  of 
energy,  and  in  a  measure  of  skill,  and,  above  all,  of 
time,  on  those  engravings,  which  no  one  but  a  lodg- 
ing-keeper frames,  and  those  Parian  statuettes  and 
Etruscan  pitchers  and  tazzas  of  all  sorts,  which  no  one 
thinks  half  so  much  of,  or  gets  half  so  much  real  pleas- 
ure and  good  from,  as  from  one  of  John  Leech's  wood- 

1  In  our  excellent  National  Gallery  (Edinburgh),  a  copy  of  Titian's 
Ariadne  in  Naxos  is  hung  immediately  above  Wilkie's  sacred  sketch 
of  John  Knox  administering  the  Sacrament  in  Calder  House ! 


452  NOTES  ON  ART. 

cuts.  One  true  way  to  encourage  Art  is  to  buy  and 
enjoy  Punch.  There  is  more  fun.  more  good  drawing, 
more  good  sense,  more  beauty  in  John  Leech's  Punch 
pictures,  than  in  all  the  Art-Union  illustrations,  en- 
gravings, statuettes,  etc.  etc.,  put  together.  Could  that 
mighty  Potentate  have  been  got  up,  think  you,  by  a 
committee  of  gentlemen,  and  those  drawings  educed  by 
proffered  prizes  ?  No  ;  they  came  out,  and  have  flour- 
ished according  to  a  law  as  natural  and  as  effective  as 
the  law  of  seed-time  and  harvest ;  and  Art,  as  a  power 
to  do  good,  will  never  reach  its  full  perfection  till  it  is 
allowed  to  walk  at  liberty,  and  follow  the  course  of  all 
other  productions,  that  of  supply  and  demand,  individ- 
ual demand,  and  voluntary  supply.  It  is  not  easy  to 
tell  how  far  back  these  well-meaning,  zealous,  deluded 
men  who  have  managed  these  "  encouragements,"  have 
put  the  progress  of  the  nation  in  its  power  of  knowing 
and  feeling  true  Art. 

One  other  heresy  I  must  vent,  and  that  is  to  protest 
against  the  doctrine  that  scientific  knowledge  is  of  much 
direct  avail  to  the  artist ;  it  may  enlarge  his  mind  as  a 
man,  and  sharpen  and  strengthen  his  nature,  but  the 
knowledge  of  anatomy  is,  I  believe,  more  a  snare  than 
anything  else  to  an  artist  as  such.  Art  is  the  tertium 
quid  resulting  from  observation  and  imagination,  with 
skill  and  love  and  downrightness  as  their  executors ; 
anything  that  interferes  with  the  action  of  any  of  these, 
is  killing  to  the  soul  of  Art.  Now,  painting  has  to  do 
simply  and  absolutely  with  the  surfaces,  with  the  appear- 
ances of  things  ;  it  knows  and  cares  nothing  for  what  is 
beneath  and  beyond,  though  if  it  does  its  own  part  aright 
it  indicates  them.  Phidias  and  the  early  Greeks,  there 
is  no  reason  to  believe,  ever  dissected  even  a  monkey, 
much  less  a  man,  and  yet  where  is  there  such  skin,  and 


NOTES  ON  AKT.  453 

muscle,  and  substance,  and  breath  of  life  ?  When  Art 
became  scientific,  as  among  the  Romans,  and  lost  its 
heart  in  filling  its  head,  see  what  became  of  it :  anatomy 
offensively  thrust  in  your  face,  and  often  bad  anatomy ; 
men  skinned  and  galvanized,  not  men  alive  and  in  action. 
In  the  same  way  in  landscape,  do  you  think  Turner 
would  have  painted  the  strata  in  an  old  quarry,  or  done 
Ben  Cruachan  more  to  the  quick,  had  he  known  all 
about  geology,  gneiss,  and  graywacke,  and  the  Silurian 
system  ?  Turner  might  have  been  what  is  called  a 
better-informed  man,  but  we  question  if  he  would  have 
been  so  good,  not  to  say  a  better  representer  of  the 
wonderful  works  of  God,  which  were  painted  on  his 
retina,  and  in  his  inner  chamber  —  the  true  Camera 
lucida,  the  chamber  of  imagery  leading  from  the  other, 
—  and  felt  to  his  finger-tips.  No ;  science  and  poetry 
are  to  a  nicety  diametrically  opposed,  and  he  must  be  a 
Shakspeare  and  a  Newton,  a  Turner  and  a  Faraday  all 
in  one,  who  can  consort  much  with  both  without  injury  to 
each.  It  is  not  what  a  man  has  learned  from  others,  not 
even  what  he  thinks,  but  what  he  sees  and  feels,  which 
makes  him  a  painter. 

The  moral  from  all  this  is,  love  Art,  and  if  you  choose, 
practise  Art.  Purchase  Art  for  itself  alone,  and  in  the 
main  for  yourself  alone.  If  you  so  do,  you  will  en- 
courage Art  to  more  purpose  than  if  you  spent  thou- 
sands a  year  in  Art-Unions,  and  in  presenting  the  public 
with  what  pleased  you  ;  just  as  a  man  does  most  good  by 
being  good.  Goldsmith  puts  it  in  his  inimitable  way  — 
"  I  was  ever  of  opinion  that  the  honest  man,  who  mar- 
ried and  brought  up  a  large  family,  did  more  service 
than  he  who  continued  single,  and  only  talked  of  popu- 
lation." 


454  NOTES  ON  ART. 

I  have  said  those  things  strongly,  abruptly,  and  per- 
haps rudely  ;  but  my  heart  is  in  the  matter.  Art  is  part 
of  my  daily  food,  like  the  laughter  of  children,  and  the 
common  air,  the  earth,  the  sky  ;  it  is  an  affection,  not  a 
passion  to  come  and  go  like  the  gusty  wind,  nor  a  prin- 
ciple cold  and  dead ;  it  penetrates  my  entire  life,  it  is  one 
of  the  surest  and  deepest  pleasures,  one  of  the  refuges 
from  "  the  nature  of  things,"  as  Bacon  would  say,  into 
that  enchanted  region,  that  "ampler  zether,"  that  "diviner 
air,"  where  we  get  a  glimpse  not  only  of  a  Paradise  that 
is  past,  but  of  a  Paradise  that  is  to  come. 

There  is  one  man  amongst  us  who  has  done  more  to 
breathe  the  breath  of  life  into  the  literature  and  the  phi- 
losophy of  Art,  who  has  "  encouraged  "  it  ten  thousand 
times  more  effectually  than  all  our  industrious  Coles  and 
anxious  Art-Unions,  and  that  is  the  author  of  Modern 
Painters.  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  anything  in  our 
literature,  or  in  any  literature,  to  compare  with  the  effect 
of  this  one  man's  writings.  He  has  by  his  sheer  force 
of  mind,  and  fervor  of  nature,  the  depth  and  exactness  of 
his  knowledge,  and  his  amazing  beauty  and  power  of 
language,  raised  the  subject  of  Art  from  being  subor- 
dinate and  technical,  to  the  same  level  with  Poetry  and 
Philosophy.  He  has  lived  to  see  an  entire  change  in 
the  public  mind  and  eye,  and,  what  is  better,  in  the 
public  heart,  on  all  that  pertains  to  the  literature  and 
philosophy  of  representative  genius.  He  combines  its 
body  and  its  soul.  Many  before  him  wrote  about  its 
body,  and  some  well ;  a  few,  as  Charles  Lamb  and  our 
own  "  Titmarsh,"  touched  its  soul :  it  was  left  to  John 
Kuskin  to  do  both.1 

1  This  great  writer  was  first  acknowledged  as  such  by  our  big  quar- 
terlies, in  the  North  British  Review,  fourteen  years  ago,  as  follows:  — 


NOTES  ON  ART.  455 

"  This  is  a  very  extraordinary  and  a  very  delightful  hook,  full  of 
truth  and  goodness,  of  power  and  heauty.  If  genius  may  be  con- 
sidered (and  it  is  as  serviceable  a  definition  as  is  current)  that  power 
by  which  one  man  produces  for  the  use  or  the  pleasure  of  his  fellow- 
men,  something  at  once  new  and  true,  then  have  we  here  its  unmis- 
takable and  inestimable  handiwork.  Let  our  readers  take  our  word 
for  it,  and  read  these  volumes  thoroughly,  giving  themselves  up  to  the 
guidance  of  this  most  original  thinker,  and  most  attractive  writer,  and 
they  will  find  not  only  that  they  are  richer  in  true  knowledge,  and 
quickened  in  pure  and  heavenly  affections,  but  they  will  open  their 
eyes  upon  a  new  world  —  walk  under  an  ampler  heaven,  and  breathe 
a  diviner  air.  There  are  few  things  more  delightful  or  more  rare, 
than  to  feel  such  a  kindling  up  of  the  whole  faculties  as  is  produced  by 
such  a  work  as  this;  it  adds  a  'precious  seeing  to  the  eye,'  —  makes 
the  ear  more  quick  of  apprehension,  and,  opening  our  whole  inner- 
man  to  a  new  discipline,  it  fills  us  with  gratitude  as  well  as  admira- 
tion towards  him  to  whom  we  owe  so  much  enjoyment.  And  what 
;8  more,  and  better  than  all  this,  everywhere  throughout  this  work, 
we  trace  evidences  of  a  deep  reverence  and  godly  fear  —  a  perpetual, 
though  subdued  acknowledgment  of  the  Almighty,  as  the  sum  and 
substance,  the  beginning  and  the  ending  of  all  truth,  of  all  power,  of 
all  goodness,  and  of  all  beauty. 

"  This  book  (Modern  Painters)  contains  more  true  philosophy,  more 
information  of  a  strictly  scientific  kind,  more  original  thought  and 
exact  observation  of  nature,  more  enlightened  and  serious  enthusiasm, 
and  more  eloquent  writing,  than  it  would  be  easy  to  match,  not  merely 
in  works  of  its  own  class,  but  in  those  of  any  class  whatever.  It  gives 
us  a  new,  and  we  think,  the  only  true  theory  of  beauty  and  sublimity; 
it  asserts  and  proves  the  existence  of  a  new  element  in  landscape- 
painting,  placing  its  prince  upon  his  rightful  throne;  it  unfolds  and 
illustrates,  with  singular  force,  variety,  and  beauty,  the  laws  of  art;  it 
explains  and  enforces  the  true  nature  and  specific  function  of  the  im- 
agination, with  the  precision  and  fulness  of  one  having  authority,  — 
and  all  this  delivered  in  language  which,  for  purity  and  strength  and 
native  richness,  would  not  have  dishonored  the  early  manhood  of 
Jeremy  Taylor,  of  Edmund  Burke,  or  of  the  author's  own  favorite 
Richard  Hooker."  —  J.  B. 


456  NOTES  ON  ART. 


BEAUTY,  ABSOLUTE  AND  RELATIVE. 

We  are  not  now  going  to  try  our  'prentice  hand  upon 
a  new  theory  of  Beauty,  after  so  many  masters  have 
failed ;  but  we  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  dispute 
would  be  at  an  end  if*  it  were  but  allowed  at  once,  that 
there  are  two  kinds  of  beauty,  that  there  is  a  material 
and  necessary  element  of  beauty,  and  another  which  is 
contingent  and  relative  —  a  natural  and  a  spiritual  de- 
lightfulness  to  and  through  the  eye  ;  and  that  sometimes 
we  see  both  together,  as  in  the  face  and  eyes  of  a  beauti- 
ful and  beloved  woman  ;  and  moreover,  that  there  is  no 
more  reason  for  denying  either  the  sense  or  the  emotion 
of  beauty,  because  everybody  does  not  agree  about  the 
kind  or  measure  of  either  of  these  qualities  in  all  objects, 
than  there  is  for  affirming  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
veracity  or  natural  affection,  because  the  Spartans  com- 
mended lying,  and  the  Cretians  practised  it,  or  the  New 
Zealanders  the  eating  of  one's  grandmother.  Why  should 
the  eye,  the  noblest,  the  amplest,  the  most  informing  of 
all  our  senses,  be  deprived  of  its  own  special  delight? 
The  light  is  sweet,  and  it  is  a  pleasant  thing  for  the  eye 
to  behold  the  sun  ;  and  why,  when  the  ear  has  sound  for 
informing,  and  music  for  delight  —  when  there  is  smell 
and  odor,  taste  and  flavor,  and  even  the  touch  has  its 
sense  of  pleasant  smoothness  and  softness  —  why  should 
there  not  be  in  the  eye  a  pleasure  born  and  dying  with 
the  sights  it  sees  ?  it  is  like  the  infinite  loving-kindness 
of  Him  who  made  the  trees  of  the  garden  pleasant  to  the 
eye  as  well  as  good  for  food.  We  say  nothing  here  of 
Relative  or  Associative  Beauty,  —  this  has  never  been 


NOTES   ON  ART.  457 

doubted  either  in  its  essence  or  its  value.  It  is  as  much 
larger  in  its  range,  as  much  nobler  in  its  meaning  and 
uses,  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth,  or  as  the 
soul  transcends  the  body.  This,  too,  gives  back  to  ma- 
terial beauty  more  than  it  received :  it  was  after  man  wag 
made,  that  God  saw,  and,  behold,  everything  was  very 
good. 

Our  readers  may  perhaps  think  we  make  too  much  of 
imagination   as  an  essential   element  —  as   the   essential 
element  —  in  Art.     With  our  views  of  its  function  and 
its  pervading  influence  in  all  the  ideal  arts,  we  can  give 
it  no  other  place.     A  man   can   no  more  be  a  poet  or 
painter  in  the  spiritual  and  only  true  sense  without  im- 
agination, than  an  animal  can  be  a  bird  without  wings ; 
and  as,  other  things  being  equal,  that  bird  can  be  longest 
on  the  wing  and  has  the  greatest  range  of  flight  which 
has  the  strongest  pinions,  so  that  painter  is  likely  to  have 
the  farthest  and  keenest  vision  of  all  that  is  within  the 
scope  of  his  art,  and  the  surest  and  most  ample  faculty 
of  making  known  to  others  what  he   himself  has  seen, 
whose  imagination  is  at  once  the  most  strong  and  quick. 
At  the  same  time,  if  it  be  true  that  the  body  without 
the  spirit  is  dead,  so  it  is  equally  true  that  the  spirit  with- 
out the  body  is  vain,  ineffectual,  fruitless.     Imagination 
alone  can  no  more  make  a  painter  or  a  poet  than  wings 
can  constitute  a  bird.     Each  must  have  a  body.     Unfor- 
tunately, in  painting  we  have  more  than  enough  of  body 
without    spirit.      Correct    drawing,    wonderful    imitative 
powers,  cleverness,  adaptiveness,  great  facility  and  dex- 
terity of  hand,  much  largeness  of  quotation,  and  many 
material   and   mechanical   qualities,   all   go    to  form   an 
amusing,  and,  it  may  be,  useful  spectacle,  but  not  a  true 
picture.     We  have  also,  but  not  so  often,  the  reverse  of 


458  NOTES   ON  ART. 

all  this,  —  the  vision  without  the  faculty,  the  soul  with 
out  the  body,  great  thoughts  without  the  power  to  em- 
body them  in  intelligible  forms.  He,  and  he  alone,  is  a 
great  painter,  and  an  heir  of  time,  who  combines  both. 
He  must  have  observation,  —  humble,  loving,  unerring, 
unwearied ;  this  is  the  material  out  of  which  a  painter, 
like  a  poet,  feeds  his  genius,  and  "  makes  grow  his 
wings."  There  must  be  perception  and  conception,  both 
vigorous,  quick  and  true ;  you  must  have  these  two 
primary  qualities,  the  one  first,  the  other  last,  in  every 
great  painter.  Give  him  good  sense  and  a  good  memory, 
it  will  be  all  the  better  for  him  and  for  us.  As  for  prin- 
ciples of  drawing  and  perspective,  they  are  not  essential. 
A  man  who  paints  according  to  a  principle  is  sure  to 
paint  ill ;  he  may  apply  his  principles  after  his  work  is 
done,  if  he  has  a  philosophic  as  well  as  an  ideal  turn. 


THE   END. 


